Never Ever Land
by dragonbabezee
Summary: This is a submission for the We're Just Saiyan Community's Disney themed Bulma/Vegeta challenge. Guess the inspiration! A young Bulma embarks on an unexpected adventure with Goku, Krillin and a certain orphaned Prince. Not really as kid-friendly as a Disney film, hence the M rating for language, themes and hopefully some blood, guts and sexual content!
1. Chapter 1 - Storytime

_Author's Note: This is a submission for Mallie-3 and maymayB's Disney themed Bulma/Vegeta challenge. Not sure how far I'll go with it yet, but I won't be updating it as often as I did with Broken Down Universe. If I do go on with it it won't remain as fluffy and light as it starts out. Already in the first two chapters we have some adult discussion and coarse language, so even though it plays with a Disney classic...it ain't._

_It's set in an AU early in Dragonball, and as I can't be bothered doing my research, the exact time when events begin shall remain a mystery and probably contrary to cannon, just like in a real DragonballZ movie!_

_If you can't guess the Disney inspiration by the end of the second chapter I'm doing something wrong!_

* * *

'When Goku gets back with the ice cream it's your turn to tell a ghost story,' said Krillin.

'Okay, okay!' snapped Bulma. She and Krillin were putting the finishing touches on the fort they were building in the old nursery. It was next door to her bedroom, and made for a more creepy venue for ghost stories as it had only one casement window instead of the floor to ceiling windows in her own room. She'd been watching a high school movie recently which featured a sleep over, and she realised she'd never had a sleep over or been asked to one. Unfortunately she also had no girlfriends, and her guests of choice were making the evening seem more like a baby-sitting job than the giggly tell-all party she'd watched on the TV. The boys had missed the point, and her sleepover was becoming a juvenile indoor camping trip. She supposed that's what she got for hanging out with twelve year old boys instead of sixteen year old girls like herself. She sighed. At least Yamcha might make it over later. There might be some giggles in it for her then.

Krillin was lining their sheet tent with pillows and sleeping bags for the night ahead while Bulma rigged it with 'spooky' lighting consisting of an old lava lamp that she had cracked open and added red food colouring to the water that surrounded the green wax blobs.

Suddenly the back of her neck tingled, as if she were being watched. Quickly she turned and looked under the edge of their sheet fortress to see if she could catch the phantom presence, and when she found no-one yet again, she shuddered and turned away. This had been happening more and more lately. Sometimes she would wake in the night thinking someone stood over her, but there was no-one ever there. Perhaps stranger than this creepy sensation were her dreams of late...In her dreams there was the same presence, dark and indistinct, brooding at her side while she faced down terrifying enemies and flew through astounding nightscapes. Sometimes she woke with an indescribable longing. This was the other reason she'd decided on a sleepover while her parents were out for the night. She was just a teensy bit afraid to sleep alone in the house. She had started to wonder if maybe she was going a little bit crazy, but those dreams...they were so compelling that they might just be worth a little bit of crazy.

'Hey, Bulma,' said Goku, crawling inside the tent, 'I found the ice cream, but I kind of ate it all in the kitchen.'

'Oh, Goku!'

'But I found other supplies! Will this do?' He was dragging a laundry basket loaded with everything unhealthy that could be found in her parent's kitchen. She helped herself to a cupcake while the boys dug in to the chips and sodas.

'Now, ghost story time!' said Krillin, chip crumbs falling from his mouth onto the blanket.

Bulma sighed, and licked the frosting off the top of her cupcake. She couldn't think of any ghost stories off the top of her head. They weren't really her thing. Maybe she'd have to make something up as she went along?

'How about a non-ghost story?' she said.

'Is it scary?' ask Krillin, hopefully.

'Is there fighting?' asked Goku, even more hopefully.

'Sure there is,' she said. 'It's about a Princess-'

'Oh, no, really, Bulma?' interrupted Krillin. 'A fairy story? Do I look five years old?'

'It's not a fairy story!' she replied tartly, dropping the feisty fairy sidekick character from the line up in her head. 'But there is a Prince.' Something shifted in her subconscious. A connection was made. The brooding presence in her dreams came to life - a man with a title, and an anger, but not much else yet. Not even a face at this point.

'Is it a kissy kissy romance?' Krillin said.

'What's that?' said Goku.

'What's what?' Krillin quizzed him. 'Kissy kissy or romance?'

'Yeah, that!' said Goku.

Bulma rolled her eyes. 'Maybe you'll get lucky and some girl will show you some day! So yes, _maybe_ they'll be some kissing and romance and stuff.'

'Hmm,' said Krillin, not as displeased with the idea as she thought he might have been.

'But fighting!' complained Goku. 'You said there'd be fighting! Do the Prince and Princess fight each other?'

'No! Or...' She smiled wickedly, her imagination sparked. 'Yes, but not how _you_ mean. They also fight pirates.'

'Pirates...' said Krillin. 'Kind of last decade, don't you think?'

'No,' said Bulma. 'They're _space_ pirates!'

* * *

'Once upon a time, there lived a Princess, who, well, actually, she wasn't really a princess. But she was very beautiful and charming, as well as extremely clever – gifted you might say - and everybody loved her. She wasn't vain at all though. Her name was-'

'Mary Sue.'

'Shut up, Krillin! No, her name was...'

'I bet it was Bulma.'

'I wasn't going to call her that! But if you insist! Her name was Bulma.'

'I knew it.'

'Anyway, the princess liked adventure, and she was very brave.'

'Bwah ha ha!'

'And the Prince from a far away land, um, in space, heard about her and thought that she might be able to help him.'

'Let me guess, the Prince was tall, dark and handsome, and his name was Yamcha!'

'No! No it's not. I'm not sure what his name is...'

'But he's tall?'

'No.'

'Dark?'

_'Yes!'_

'And handsome?'

'I...I don't know.'

'Bald?'

'No! As if! He wasn't called Krillin either. Anyway, the Prince was poor, and didn't have anything to pay the Princess for her help (and she was very rich), but he wanted to see if the stories about her kindness and wisdom were true. So he started watching the Princess from afar.'

'Creepy. And what did the Stalker Prince need her help with?'

'Well, hmm...the princess was the only one clever enough in a thousand years to figure out how to use a set of legendary magical gems that grant wishes.'

'Dragonballs?'

'No, not Dragonballs!'

'If you mean Dragonballs just say Dragonballs, Bulma.'

'Quiet, Krillin! Who's telling this story, huh? The magical gems are really difficult to find, and they must be gathered together before their magic can be used.'

'Like Dragonballs!'

'All right, I guess so. And the Prince wanted to use the Dragonballs – I mean gems - to defeat the evil space pirates led by the very, very, extra-specially evil Captain...Ice-cream.'

'Why didn't he just fight the Captain?'

'Because, Goku, Captain Ice-cream was the most powerful and sinister pirate in the galaxy, and he and his crew piloted their ship from planet to planet, looting and burning, and killing and torturing, and always on the lookout for the Prince, who is a thorn in his side. Even though he is much more powerful than the Prince, he is scared of him too because...because...er...'

'He has a pure heart?'

'No, I don't think it's that, Goku.'

'Because he's sworn revenge?'

'Yes, Krillin's right. Because the Prince has sworn revenge on Captain Ice-cream for destroying his home planet and his family. But there's a prophecy too...The Prince is a lost Prince...With no home and no family.'

'Gosh, the Prince must be sad.'

'Yeah, Goku, he's very sad...'

'So why did the Prince need the Dragonballs? I mean "magic gems?"'

'Well the Prince wanted...he was...he needed...him and his um, merry men...'

'Merry men? Bulma, your story sucks! I know one that's actually scary, about three teenagers who go looking in a forest for a ghost witch.'

'A ghost witch? Yeah, Krillin, sounds _really_ scary. I'm shaking in my sleeping bag already.'

* * *

Yamcha was a lot later than he thought he'd be. He still wasn't used to the city, and he and Puar had gotten lost on the way in. Luckily everyone and their dog knew where Capsule Corp was, although at this time of night most of the people he'd asked directions of were drunk. As he lifted the mat to get the key Bulma had left out for him he was suddenly illuminated by headlights and heard the sound of tyres on gravel coming up the drive. As Mr and Mrs Briefs got out of their car and greeted him he kissed goodbye to his plan to spend the last of the night cosied up with Bulma, making it to third base.

'Yamcha, dear! I didn't know you were coming over tonight!' trilled Mrs Briefs, her tone holding just a tiny note of accusation.

'Yes, I thought it was just the two young boys Bulma was having over,' said Dr Briefs, whose tone held none. He encapsulated the car and then smiled absently at Yamcha.

'Oh yeah, Mrs Briefs. I wasn't sure I was going to make it, and then I got lost in the city on the way here. I...I didn't think you guys were coming home tonight.'

They ambled up the front steps, Dr Briefs flicking through his keys. 'Well, the conference was really not all I hoped it would be; I decided not to stay for the second day.'

'And the hotel was so pokey!' added Mrs Briefs. 'We decided to head home after the evening entertainment.'

As they entered the house Yamcha dithered on the porch.

'Are you coming in, boy?' asked Dr Briefs, turning to close the door.

'I'm sure the others are all asleep, but I can't turn you away at this hour. I'll make up a room for you, shall I?' smiled Mrs Briefs.

'That would be very kind!' chirped Puar from his shoulder.

'Thank you!' said Yamcha, his frustrated sexual yearnings making it a little hard to smile genuinely. Well at least he'd have a comfortable bed and a legendary Mrs Briefs breakfast out of this.

They headed upstairs and Mrs Briefs quietly checked Bulma's room as they passed.

'Oh! They're not even in here!' she gasped. 'I wonder where on earth they are?'

'It's a very big house dear, I'm sure they're somewhere,' said Dr Briefs, already heading down the hall to their room.

Mrs Briefs looked a little worried, and Yamcha was of the same mind as her. He'd be much happier knowing that Bulma and the others were safely inside the house before he went to sleep.

'I think...' he said, wandering down the hall to the next door, 'that they might be in here.'

'In the nursery?' She frowned and opened the door. 'Oh, you are so right!' she whispered. He stuck his own head round the door jamb to see a makeshift tent of sheets and chairs and floor lamps in the middle of the room, lit from within by an eerie red glow. Under the edge of a sheet could be seen the sleeping faces of Goku, Bulma and Krillin.

'Isn't that adorable?' she gushed.

'Sure,' said Yamcha, feeling betrayed that they hadn't waited up for him.

'How did you know where they were?' she asked, curiously as she closed the door again.

'I don't know,' he answered. 'Just a feeling.' He didn't know how, but these 'feelings' had been growing more acute lately. Since he had started training he was starting to know where certain people were without looking. Especially Goku, Krillin and Bulma.

Mrs Briefs led him further down the hall to the next room and helped him make up the bed.

'See you in the morning, dear.'

As soon as Mrs Briefs was back in her own bedroom she turned to her husband who was taking his shoes off. He had been preoccupied all evening, even more absent than usual. He'd had a rather unpleasing experience at the conference. He had given a presentation before dinner, but during dinner, when visiting the bathroom he'd been in a stall when two loud-mouths had entered to use the urinal. He didn't recognise their voices, but they spoke of him and another man, Alexi Borg knowingly. Alexi Borg was the CEO of a smaller competitor to Capsule Corp, Zapp Industries, and Capsule Corp was in the process of acquiring the company. Borg would soon be joining Capsule Corp's board of directors.

'What did you think of Briefs' presentation?' asked a reedy voice.

'Typical loony talk again! The fool's inventions are revolutionary, but I think he hardly knows he lives on the same planet as the rest of us.'

The other man grunted. 'I wonder how Alexi is going to fare on the board of directors under Briefs?'

'The other way round, surely?' snorted the other man. 'I wouldn't be surprised if Briefs is working for Alexi in a year's time. The eccentric bumbler won't know what hit him!' And then the two of them had laughed. Dr Briefs's ego, usually well buried and protected by his comfortable distance from the world had been stung by the revelation he was thought to be a fool. It had been his main reason for wishing to leave the conference early. He was still troubled by the incident when his wife forced another discomfort on his mind.

'I'm worried about that boy Yamcha,' she said frankly as she closed the door.

Dr Briefs looked up, surprised by the serious tone of her voice. 'I thought you liked Yamcha?'

'Oh, I do! He's lovely, and so handsome! But he's too old for our Bulma! I know she's been growing up so fast, but she's still a child, and he's a young man! A young man who turned up tonight while we weren't here.'

He looked at her, sensing something unpleasant was on its way. He'd prefer not to think of such things.

'Bulma is a very sensible girl. I'm sure she won't do anything she doesn't want to.'

'I'm not sure it's the things she doesn't want to do we should be worried about.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean that I was a girl her age once! And there wasn't many places I wouldn't go if a handsome young man like Yamcha had asked me to go there with him, if you understand my meaning.'

Dr Briefs blushed. 'She's clever enough to make her own decisions.'

'No, dear, she isn't.'

'Well what do you suggest we do about it?'

'In the morning I'll have a little chat to Bulma. And you're going to have a talk to Yamcha. Lay down some ground rules.'

'I'm not sure that's necessary,' he said, as he climbed into his pyjamas.

Mrs Briefs flounced across the bedroom, shedding her evening dress as she went. 'I think you'll see the necessity too late if Bulma can't help you work on your little projects because she's too busy looking after a baby.'

'A baby!' he spluttered.

'Or even if she's just too heartbroken to concentrate on your doo-dacky inventions with you,' she added, but she was right to impress upon him the fact that leaving Bulma and Yamcha to their own devices might eat into his time he got to spend teaching and working with his daughter. His offspring's young, brilliant mind was a primary source of joy to him, and there was no-one he enjoyed working with more.

'Perhaps I'll say something,' he conceded.

'Good!' said his wife, shimmying out of her undergarments. 'I know we've given Bulma a free reign, but I think she might need some boundaries to work with here. Or that boy is going to think he can come and go as he pleases and make a fool out of us.'

Dr Briefs felt a rare spark of anger at the thought. He might be a bit absent, and truthfully quite a bit eccentric, but he would not be made a fool of!

* * *

Mrs Briefs lay in bed for an hour without sleeping. For some reason she couldn't shake a niggling feeling of unease. Maybe she'd had one too many glasses of wine after dinner, but the sense that all was not well would not let her sleep.

She'd been worrying about her little girl lately. It wasn't like her to worry at all about her daughter, who seemed so capable and confident at such an early age that she felt no qualms about letting Bulma go on these extended camping trips she so loved, and liked to call 'adventures'. The friends she had made were all exemplary, even Yamcha, but the three year age gap made her nervous now.

The things that Bulma had told her lately, about a feeling of being stalked, about a shadowy figure in her dreams that watched her while she slept - they alarmed Mrs Briefs. If Bulma was exhibiting the first signs of mental or emotional disturbance, she wanted to be the one that Bulma turned to for help, not the shoulder of a randy nineteen year old boy. Her little girl was vulnerable right now.

Eventually she got up to find some aspirin for her headache, and as she passed Yamcha's room heard movement inside. Was he still up? She waited outside in the corridor for a little while, wondering if Bulma was inside with him, or if Yamcha was about to sneak out to get Bulma from the nursery.

Tip-toeing, she made her way to the nursery herself, but the three kids were all asleep still, with the breeze from the open casement window ruffling the sheet wall of their den. She settled down in the rocking chair, pulling her dressing gown snugly around her, thinking to wait a little while just in case the boy tried something...

She awoke to confusion and commotion.

'Who the hell are you? Get the hell out!'

She leapt to her feet as a tremendous crack sounded, and the air was filled with the sounds of Bulma, Goku and Krillin's screams and curses. Yamcha stood by the window that he'd just slammed and the sheet tent was destroyed, in tangles around the other three.

'Yamcha, what was it?' cried Bulma as she struggled out of her sleeping bag.

He was at her side in a second, wrapping his arms around her. 'Something was in here, Bulma! I sensed it in here!'

'What?' gasped Bulma and Mrs Briefs in unison. Everyone else turned to Mrs Briefs, noticing her for the first time. At that moment though the nursery door burst open and Dr Briefs barrelled into the room.

'What the devil is going on?' he said, but then his eyes alighted on Yamcha and Bulma in the middle of the room, arms round each other and she only in her nightgown.

'There was something in here,' said Yamcha. 'I scared it away.'

'What was in here?'

'I'm not sure. I sensed it-'

'Sensed it? Poppycock!'

'I saw it moving, but I didn't get a good look – it was already making for the window when I opened the door.'

'I was here the whole time, though,' said Mrs Briefs. 'I didn't hear anyone come in. And how would they get out?'

'Through the window,' said Yamcha, going back to the window and opening it again to look out.

'But we're three stories up!' objected Mrs Briefs. 'They'd have broken their necks leaping from this high!'

She and Dr Briefs both looked down out of the window, but there was no sign that anyone or anything had fallen from it.

Dr Briefs turned back, and with uncharacteristic anger asked Yamcha, 'How did they get away then boy? Fly?'

'I - I don't know...' stammered Yamcha.

'I might seem absent minded and eccentric to you, son, but I'll not be made a fool of in my own house! The only thing to sneak into this room is you!'

'Dad!' gasped Bulma, 'What are you saying?'

'Yamcha doesn't lie!' squeaked Puar defensively. She was clinging to Yamcha's shoulder again, shaking from the stress of standing up to Dr Briefs's accusation of her best friend.

'Did you see anything?' Mrs Briefs asked the cat.

Puar shook her head regretfully.

'That's because there was nothing to see!' said Dr Briefs. 'I've heard enough boy – I know you think you can get away with almost anything in this house, but you'll find out tonight that this is not true. It's time you left.'

'No! Dad! What are you saying?' screeched Bulma. 'You can't throw my boyfriend out!'

'Yes, I can!'

Yamcha was glaring at the scientist. 'Don't worry, Bulma, I'm going.'

'No! It's the middle of the night! Where are you going to go?'

'She's right, dear, it's the middle of the night,' said Mrs Briefs urgently. She didn't know where this unexpected flare of temper in her husband had come from, and was worried that it might be because of her words earlier. 'Let him stay in the pool house at least. In the morning we'll figure out what's happened here.'

'Fine,' said the doctor. 'Now get going young man.'

Yamcha cast worried eyes over Bulma. To Goku and Krillin he said 'You'd better not sleep so deeply that you don't notice that thing come back.' To Puar, who perched on his shoulder, he whispered quietly 'Stay here with her. Find me at once if it comes back.' Puar nodded and detached herself from him, floating to the floor behind his back, unnoticed by everyone else.

'I can't believe it!' muttered Bulma, as Yamcha and her father headed for the door. Goku and Krillin stood looking at their feet, made anxious and embarrassed by witnessing this family drama. 'Mom, why would Dad do that? That was so unfair! Yamcha was just looking out for me!'

Mrs Briefs didn't honestly know why her husband had overreacted. 'Don't worry, we'll sort it out in the morning.' She saw the tears of anger in her daughter's eyes and took her by the hand, leading her to the door that connected the nursery directly to Bulma's bedroom. Puar floated discreetly behind. 'I'll be back to help you boys tidy up,' Mrs Briefs told Goku and Krillin.

In Bulma's room she perched her daughter on the edge of the bed and watched her troubled face.

'It was very bad of Yamcha to scare you like that,' she said to Bulma. 'Are you worried about your phantom again?'

Bulma looked confused. 'No. I think whatever it is doesn't want to hurt me.'

'Bulma, there was nothing there! Yamcha was mistaken, or playing a trick on you!'

Bulma finally focused on her. 'You're right, Mom, how could there have been anything there?'

Mrs Briefs breathed a tiny bit easier, but she could see that she was going to spend a good portion of tomorrow looking up the numbers of some good child psychologists.

Bulma climbed into bed while Puar hid from Mrs Briefs amongst the soft toys along Bulma's headboard.

'I can't believe that Dad would blow up like that though! You'd think he doesn't trust me or Yamcha anymore.'

Mrs Briefs took a fortifying deep breath. Fine. They would have this conversation now.

'Well...maybe he's worried that you might get yourself in deeper with Yamcha than is wise,' she suggested.

The muted city lights coming in the French doors were not quite enough to show Bulma's blush at these words. 'And how deep would that be?'

'You know what I mean, Bulma. You're too young to have a serious boyfriend.'

'What? Do you think he's going to break my heart and leave me ruined?' she said scathingly.

'Perhaps. Though I find it more likely that _you_ will break _his_ heart and leave _him_ ruined, my fickle daughter.' The boy adored Bulma.

'Then what's the problem?' Bulma pouted, crossing her arms.

'It would be best not to lead him _all_ the way down the garden path before leaving him there, dear. And sex confuses things. You think you love him now, but if he's not right for you it might take you a lot longer to figure it out if you're sleeping together. And then breaking up will be a lot harder, believe me. Wait a year or two, then decide if he's really for you.'

'Well, relax, Mom, because we're not "sleeping together".'

'Good.'

'_Yet,_' Bulma muttered.

'Sorry dear, what was that?'

'Nothing, _Mother_.'

Returning to the nursery Mrs Briefs saw that the boys had already cleared up the mess and lay side by side in their sleeping bags.

'You didn't see anything did you, boys?'

They both shook their heads.

She was about to leave when she saw something lying on the floor under the window. It was the shape of a long salami, and furry. What was it? A breeze stopper for the window? A stuffed toy snake? The light was too dim to make it out. With a sigh she lifted the lid of Bulma's old toy box and threw it in. Then she turned and locked the casement window...just in case.

* * *

Outside the pool house Yamcha kept vigil, watching the windows of the nursery and Bulma's bedroom. He knew he'd not been mistaken. Something had been in the nursery, sniffing around the others. The problem was, though, that the night was warm and he was just so damn tired...

* * *

_Author's Note: Chapter 2. The Stalker Prince, awaits you at the click of a button..._


	2. Chapter 2 - The Stalker Prince

_Author's Note: the second of the two chapters I am submitting for the challenge. Don't expect another update for a while. I still have to write the epilogue for Broken Down Universe!_

* * *

Bulma woke again a little while later. A breeze was stirring her hair from the open French door. As she lay there wondering why her mother had opened it she heard movement in the room and froze. The tingle of that dark presence was back, only now...someone really _was_ there!

She could hear them quietly opening and rummaging her dresser drawers. Her heart began beating so loudly in her ears that she was sure whoever it was would be able to hear it. Ever so slowly she raised her head and turned it to look down the length of the room.

'Please be Mom! Please be Mom!' she prayed silently.

It was not.

A lithe figure in dark clothes and some kind of white, shiny chestplate, was dipping through her underwear draw.

She thought her heart stopped for a second, and then, even though she had been very quiet, the figure turned and leapt at her clear across the room, landing on all fours astride her before she'd finished opening her mouth to scream. A hand clamped down hard over her mouth.

'Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!' was all that came out.

'Silence!' hissed his voice, for it was a man, or at least a male. The weight of his knees either side of her on the bedclothes effectively pinned her arms to her sides, but her legs were free to kick about, and she kneed him hard in the backside over and over, her earlier assertion that her phantom meant her no harm seeming ludicrous. The figure didn't even flinch, but lowered himself so that his face was just a few inches from her.

'Stop that,' he said. His voice was low and soft but full of menace. Bulma could see dark eyes gleaming at her from under black brows that were pulled down into a V of fury. There was a strange white device clamped over one of his ears, from which a coloured transparent screen wrapped to cover his eye on that side, like half a pair of sunglasses. It was hard to make out much else by the city lights, other than his high brow and deep widow's peak. He pulled back his lips from his teeth - sharp looking things - and it wasn't a smile but an animalistic snarl. She felt like a mouse caught between the paws of a particularly cruel cat. Her legs stopped their assault all by themselves as the instinct to play dead took over.

'Now,' he said, 'where is it?'

He took his hand from her mouth so that she could answer but she just continued to stare at him, hardly breathing. She hadn't the slightest clue what he was talking about and she was too scared to tell him so.

Suddenly an avalanche of soft toys fell upon their heads and the intruder reared up on his knees in surprise.

'You leave her alone!' squeaked a tiny voice, and Bulma saw her rescuer float into view – a trembling Puar who defiantly looked him straight in the eye.

'What the hell is _that?_' he gaped at the little creature. Bulma likewise stared at the cat, having no idea she'd been hiding in her room, and though she was grateful for an ally, she was pretty sure Puar was not going to be her saviour in this case. She struggled to sit up and worm away from the man, but he felt her moving under him and pushed her back down on to the mattress with just one hand on her breastbone. It felt like a lead weight there, and she whimpered in fright as she struggled to go on breathing.

'I'm her friend, and I'm telling you to let her go!' shouted Puar in her little voice.

'Or what?' he scoffed.

'Or I'll...I'll raise the alarm!'

The poor cat had hardly gotten these words out before a white-gloved fist shot out and grasped her round the neck and most of her body.

'You'll do no such thing,' he said, and squeezed.

'Eeep!'

Bulma was galvanised into action by Puar's mewl of pain. Though she couldn't get up, the man's groin was only inches from her face. Her arms may be trapped, but her fists weren't the only weapon she had available. She head-butted him in the balls, and then scrambled around trying to find something soft to crush with her teeth.

The man gasped, his legs tightening around her as he instinctively tried to close his legs against the assault, and fell forwards, sprawling onto top of her painfully, Her scream was muffled in his thighs.

'I'm too young to be smothered to death in some guy's crotch!' Bulma wailed internally.

Suddenly a hand wormed its way between her face and his pants, and clamped back down on her face. The weight lifted off her, and when she could see again, the man was floating above her at arm's length, one hand over her mouth and the other pressing poor Puar into the pillow next to her.

'A flying man?' she wanted to shout, but couldn't. While she'd gotten used to Puar's unexplained ability to float around, she didn't think people were capable of levitation.

'Tricky bitch,' he said, with a mean chuckle. It seemed like she'd barely managed to hurt him. 'Now tell me where my tail is.'

He removed his hand from her mouth.

'Who the hell are y-'

He clamped his hand back down on her mouth. 'My tail!' he reminded her, and lifted his hand again.

'You won't get away with thi-'

The hand came down again and he snarled at her.

'The dog that cut off my tail is in the garden, asleep on sentry duty, two children sleep in the room next door, and two weak-as-fuck adults are asleep down the hall. I don't want any witnesses, so either you can _quietly_ answer my questions, or you can wake the household and I will happily kill them all when we are done. Your choice.'

Bulma's heart pounded in her chest. When he took his hand off her mouth this time she took a moment to still her panic before she whispered 'What about me and Puar? Will you kill us when you're done?'

'Not if you prove useful,' he replied, showing his teeth again. This, she supposed, was meant to be a smile this time, albeit a nasty one.

'If we help you find your tail, will you leave us alone?' asked Puar.

'Maybe,' he said. 'Let's find out.'

Trembling, Bulma dragged herself up and away from where he hovered over her. She turned on the bedside lamp and saw her intruder properly for the first time. He wasn't as old as she had thought he might be from the voice. In fact she'd guess he was not much older than herself. He didn't look very tall or large. His hair was a strange crown of black spikes that rose from a deep widow's peak straight from his head, defying the laws of physics as blithely as the boy himself. It was unusual, but not as striking as his face. It was boyish but feral. Bulma might have thought him cute if it hadn't been for the circumstances and the look of cunning ferocity his features were stamped with. He glared at her from under thick black brows, and his eyes as dark and wild as a wolverine's.

He was wearing a blue suit with white boots and gloves, and a plastic-looking set of body armour in white and gold. As she watched he rocked back in the air and crossed his arms and legs, floating like a genie two feet above her bed. He still clutched Puar in his fist with as little thought as if she was one of the toys she had hid amongst earlier.

From behind him hung a short furry thing that dripped a spot of blood on her bedsheets as she watched. In fact, there were little drips of blood all over the bed and the carpet.

'You really do have a tail!'

'Half a tail! Where is the other half? That lumbering Earthling got lucky and slammed the window on it as I left.'

'I don't know where it is, but if you stop squeezing Puar so hard, I'll help you find it.'

The boy let go of Puar but caught her by the tail again as soon as she made to speed away over his shoulder.

'You'll go nowhere and make no sound unless I tell you,' he said. He floated away from the bed and alighted on the floor, towing Puar along like a balloon on a string. Puar turned her anguished face to Bulma as if to say 'I'm sorry!'

Bulma slid off the bed, shaking. 'Did you look under the window?' she said.

The response she got was a growl. 'Do I look like an imbecile?'

Bulma looked around the room. How would a severed tail have moved by itself? And then she realised that of course it couldn't have. Krillin, Goku or her mother must have moved it. She crept along the carpet to the open door that led to the nursery, wondering if she dared try and wake the boys to try and overpower this creature before he killed either her or Puar. Would they be up to the task of taking down a flying boy? As she was wondering this the boy silently came alongside her and lay a hand across the back of her neck in overt threat. He grinned nastily.

'Just try it,' he whispered.

Shivers of terror ran down her back from that contact as she began to look in earnest for the tail. It was not under the window of course, though she now noticed the smear of blood on the bottom edge of the window that had been overlooked during the confusion after Yamcha had chased this boy away.

Goku and Krillin lay snoring in their sleeping bags, the laundry basket that had held the snacks was now full of the sheets from the packed down tent. She poked through it but found no tail. Then she checked the small rubbish pail under the old crib, but that was totally empty. If her mother had picked it up, would she have known what it was? Probably not. She'd have thought it was a toy probably. Bulma knew at once where it would be. She crossed the room to the toy box, which was disguised as a chair, with an upholstered seat for a lid and a high back behind it. Reaching her hand into the dark space she encountered several furry things, but only one of which left a wet smear across her hand. Shuddering she picked it up and held it out to the boy.

'There, that wasn't so hard to find, was it?' she whispered.

He didn't answer, but snatched the tail back away from her, letting go of Puar. Puar leapt to Bulma's shoulder and hung on to her in terror. Pushing Bulma in front of him by her neck he moved them back to her room to where the light coming in the tall windows and the bedside lamp showed the sad thing in his hand. He let go of Bulma too, focusing entirely on his tail, stretching behind himself to grasp and inspect the other end of it, gasping and grimacing as he did so. Bulma could see now that there was a fine bead of sweat on the boy's upper lip and his hands shook.

'Fuck, fuck!' he was muttering. 'I'll be the fucking laughing stock!'

The whole sight was rather pathetic. Bulma would have found it almost funny if she hadn't been so scared.

'Does that hurt?' she asked.

'What do _you_ think?' he snapped.

'There's some anaesthetic and other stuff in my father's lab downstairs,' she said.

'A Saiyan warrior is not troubled by such a piffling amount of pain,' he said, but Bulma recognised this as bravado. He stalked away to the other end of the room and opened her underwear draw again, coming back to the light with a handful of socks and stockings. Next he sat and attempted to bind the severed tail to the stump with a pair of stockings. He gasped and grunted with pain the whole time, and Bulma began to feel a little sorry for him. She didn't know why, not at after the way he'd threatened her and Puar. He was a savage, no doubt, but he was a boy, in pain, and he was obviously woefully ignorant about how to deal with such an injury. Not that she was an expert, but she'd read some books, knew some theory and watched some reality TV hospital dramas. Her father had recently been working on some non-surgical medical solutions for traumatic injuries, and she felt it her daughterly duty to take an interest.

When he'd lashed the two ends together he stood up slowly. Predictably the makeshift bandage failed and the tail tumbled to the ground again.

'No!' hissed the boy, snatching it back up. 'No, I can't lose my tail! I'm the Prince of All Saiyans; how can I command my men without a tail?'

A Prince? A fairly unlikely prince! And yet, not so much unlike the dream that inspired her story. He was certainly dark. She wondered if, under the terrifying aggression, he was sad too.

He slumped to the floor, pressing his face into the mattress in despair, his shoulders shaking. His desperation began to move Bulma.

'Hey, boy, don't cry,' she said.

He swung his head towards her and snarled 'I am NOT crying you moronic girl! I'm coming to terms with living the rest of my life as half a man!'

'Hey buddy, don't call me moronic! Do you have any idea who you are speaking to?' She glared at him and surprisingly he looked mildly abashed. 'I was about to offer to help you, but if you don't want your tail reattached, by all means, go on being insulting and psychotically aggressive!'

He regarded her with a look of mingled hope and suspicion. 'You would heal me?'

'Maybe. If you asked nice.'

'Heal me now, female!' he barked at her. 'Do it and I'll spare your life!'

She gaped at him. 'Try again! That wasn't "nice". Some manners you have for a prince!'

'Bulma!' objected Puar in her ear. 'Don't antagonise him!'

The boy stood up and advanced on Bulma, She stepped away from him until her back was against the wall and he leaned right into her personal space. The look he was giving her could have peeled the paint off the walls.

'Heal me now, please, female,' he hissed softly, his breath tickling across her lips, the sarcasm and the threat in his tone unmistakeable.

'That's better,' she squeaked, deciding that good manners were not worth risking her life over.

She led him down through the dark house and out the back door to her father's underground labs. One of the workrooms was a medical research lab, which also had some other supplies for actually treating injuries. Accidents did happen, especially in a work environment where every second day something never before seen in the world was invented and experimented with.

She had him sit down on the steel-top workbench in the middle of the lab with his feet on a chair. She pulled over a bright task lamp and went through the medical supplies in the drawers and the fridge, returning to the Prince with armloads of vials, syringes, bandages, saline solution, scissors and forceps. Then she went into the cooler chest where her father's experimental solutions were. Puar shivered on her shoulder and whispered to her, 'See if you can knock him out, Bulma.'

The Prince looked extremely uncomfortable perched on the bench and bleeding slowly onto it. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest and watched her every move suspiciously. He reminded her of a wild animal, trapped and wounded and untrusting of humans. Now she could see him more clearly in the brighter light she saw that his irises really were almost as black as his pupils. The only other person she knew with eyes that dark was Goku. And come to think of it, the only other person she knew with a tail was Goku too.

Bulma selected an oral sedative spray and stood in front of him holding it up.

'Now open your mouth and say "ah".'

'Girl, if I suspect you are poisoning me, you will be dead before I am.'

'Ha! Well if you don't want me to fix you, then forget it. Go without a tail, see if I care.'

He scowled at her, breathing harder and harder as he stared at her as he struggled between his need for help and his distrust. 'Why are you helping me?' he asked.

'You threatened my life remember?'

'You were going to offer anyway.'

Bulma bit her lip. Why the heck _was_ she helping him? She shrugged. 'You said you were a prince, right? Maybe I'm doing it in the hopes that you'll reward me handsomely.'

He snorted. 'Then you shall be disappointed,' he said, turning his face away. 'I have very few things left to me, and none of them are up for grabs. You are rich…' His eyes wandered around the lab. 'The people here don't live like this from what I've seen. Your family is wealthy and important. What kind of reward would you want for?'

'Well maybe I'm not doing it for a reward then.'

'Then why?' his voice was rough and demanding, but he spoke quietly.

Bulma looked him in the eye and saw an alien soul in there; someone quite unlike anyone she'd ever met before. It was cold and sharp and confused. She just had a feeling...if this was the man in her dreams, then he couldn't be totally evil.

She countered his question with her own. 'What were you doing in the nursery?'

His eyes focused on her and anger rippled across his features. 'None of your damn business!'

'You were intruding in my house, buddy, I think it's my business!'

His lip lifted in a snarl, and before she realised he was moving he had snatched the little bottle of sedative from her.

'Are you going to heal me or not, Girl? What is this stuff?'

'It's for pain, and it'll help constrict capillaries to slow bleeding,' she said, which was true, but she didn't mention that it also had a euphoria-inducing side effect, was highly sedating, and that it didn't take much to send a person into a doped slumber. 'Spray a few squirts into your mouth and swallow. In a minute I'll inject you with a local anaesthetic in your tail and start to reattach it.'

Keeping his eyes on her he did as she said, taking three decent sprays and then licking his lips as his mouth went numb. Bulma had to fight to keep her face straight. In a way it was as cruel and as funny as giving whisky to a dog. He tried to maintain his glare, but this stuff was fast acting, and it rapidly became an intoxicated squint.

Bulma walked around the bench behind him to give him the anaesthetic as she said. She rather expected though that he would topple over asleep at any moment, but he didn't. 'Damn,' she thought to herself, 'he must be able to tolerate more that a normal person.' Her plan had been to wait till he was dozing and then send Puar for the others, but it looked like this might not work.

Tentatively she picked up his tail, and he jumped despite the sedative and looked over his shoulder at her with a low growl.

'I'm sorry if it's hurting, but I'm going to have to touch it if I'm going to fix it,' she said. She filled a syringe from a vial of local and prepared to inject him. 'Okay, this might hurt a little. M-maybe you should have another squirt of painkiller to prepare?' she told him hopefully.

'No!' he said. 'I think I've had enough of_ that_.'

She grasped his tail again. It had rather soft fur over a whip-like cord of muscle and bone. He jerked again slightly at her touch, and she tried to sooth him as she angled the needle through the fur and skin, stroking it like she was petting a small animal. The boy's growl rumbled on and on - a very strange sound to come from a person. It was more like a stressed-out dog. She injected him again, nearer to the base of the tail and then smoothed over the site with her hand.

'There there,' she said. 'The worst is over.'

He reached back and grabbed her wrist painfully hard, almost over balancing in the process. 'Stop that!' he shouted. Bulma froze and stared into his unfocused eyes. 'As you are an ignorant Earthling, I will give you the benefit of the doubt.' His words were beginning to be slurred, nor was he making much sense. She wondered if maybe he would succumb to the sedative after all.

'Doubt about what?'

'You have no idea how grossly inappropriate it is that you should touch me so.' He turned back to face the opposite wall, muttering, 'Not even a Saiyan!'

'You mean stroke your tail?'

He grunted in reply.

She backed off and tested the severed end of the tail for sensitivity, prodding it carefully. When he didn't react she picked it up and began to clean both ends with sterile gauze and saline solution. There was some crushed bone either side. She decided that rather than mend that bone she would remove the crushed vertebrae and pull the two either sides of it together to meet each other. Maybe she should take him to a hospital, but something told her he would not go. As she worked she felt a bit calmer. It was rather like tinkering on a project, and figuring things out and fixing stuff was her favourite hobby.

'Saiyan?' she asked eventually. 'You said you were the Prince of Saiyans. What's a Saiyan?'

'Me! I am. And my people.'

'Do you all have tails there?'

'We do.' He sighed and lowered his head till he could rest his face in his hands, elbows propped on his knees. Would he lose his balance and topple over?

'I wonder if my friend Goku is from there? He's an orphan who never knew his parents, and he has a tail too.'

'What? A tail like this?'

'Eyes like yours too, and spiky black hair.'

'Kakarott!' he said, laughing out the word, low and sleepy. When he spoke like that Bulma began to imagine what this boy would be like without the aggression. She battled the urge to stroke his back like a big dog.

'What's a Kakarott?'

'Where is your friend?' he asked, and she could hear the smile in his voice. She looked at Puar, whose tense face only showed confusion. Puar shrugged.

'He's upstairs in the nursery,' she replied, hoping this was an innocuous thing to tell the prince.

He laughed, slow and low. 'He is one of mine, yes! Imagine him being here with you, girl. Two birds with one stone.'

'What?' she said, stopping in the act of spraying an experimental bone glue over the joins she wanted to knit together. It would dissolve over the course of weeks, but in the meantime it would hold the tail together while the tissues healed around it. 'Am I a bird in this metaphor?'

'You're a bird,' he slurred, quite far gone now. 'Bulma-bird.'

She gasped. 'You know my name!'

'I heard of you,' he said. 'Came to see...if it was true.'

A tingle of alarm, or maybe it was excitement shivered down Bulma's spine. 'Have you been watching me? For the last couple of weeks?'

He snorted. 'Yes, but you are all too slow and stupid to catch _me!_'

'Even in my room at night?'

'Especially then.'

Puar and Bulma both gasped.

'Why?'

'I heard a story,' he told her. 'About a princess with magic gems. I want a wish.'

So he had heard her story earlier? It didn't make any sense! She decided to ask him another question, and it seemed silly, but so was a flying boy, so she may as well ask it. If she wasn't crazy about the phantom presence...

'Have you been visiting me in my dreams?' she asked. Puar gasped in surprise at the question, but the prince laughed.

'Ha! Idiot Bulma-bird. How would I do that?' And then he repeated 'Bulma-bird, Bulma-bird,' several times as if rolling the phrase around his tongue for fun. 'Bimla bud, Bumla bid...'

'My name is Bulma Briefs, not Bulma-bird!' she said, beginning to be bolder in the face of his inebriation.

'Whatever, Girl.'

She huffed, reaching for the severed ends of his nerves with her forceps. She would glue them together with another of her father's inventions - a conductive polymer meant just for this purpose.

'Maybe I'll just call you Boy then, huh?'

'No!' he objected. 'Prince Vegeta!'

'Well Prince Vegeta, of Saiya Land, tell me again why you are here.'

'It's not Saiya Land, it's Planet Vegeta.'

Bulma burst out laughing. 'What an ego! A planet named after you! If you want me to believe you are an alien you'll have to come up with a more convincing back story than that!'

'I am Prince Vegeta of Planet Vegeta, Prince of all the Saiyans!' he shouted back, reviving somewhat from the sedative.

'All right, whatever you say buddy,' she said, beginning the same process with the severed muscle. This surgery stuff was easy! She decided she would ask her father if she could be more involved in this medical research project. 'How many people do you rule on your imaginary planet?'

'Ah...four. Five if you count Kakarott. Six if you count me.'

'That's not many for a planet.'

'The rest are all dead. Destroyed with the planet when I was a child.'

Bulma stopped what she was doing for a second. Obviously he was just quoting her own story back to her. A prince with no home indeed!

'I thought you knew,' he went on. 'I heard you telling the other two earlier. How did you know?'

She pulled his shoulder round so that she could see his face. He looked at her, still woozy, but tension was returning to his face.

'Are you shitting me?' she said.

He growled and reached an unsteady hand for her throat. 'You have poisoned me, witch! Plied me with truth serums.'

'No, I didn't!' she backed away. 'It was just painkiller! You must be more susceptible because...you're an alien.' He was actually less susceptible, perhaps _because_ he was an alien. Really, an ALIEN? Now she considered it, perhaps it was not so far fetched. He didn't look like any other human, except Goku who, it turned out, might not be human either!

He continued to glower at her until he seemed to lose the energy and the focus. 'Is my tail fixed yet?'

'Getting there.'

She cut away some of the fur around each side and began trying to join the ends of the major blood vessels - slippery work. There was a spray bottle of hormone to promote regrowth also and she used this liberally.

'You are weak, but clever,' he said, almost to himself. 'You could be useful. My men would not have known how to reattach a tail.'

'What about your women then?'

'There are no women. They are all young male warriors like myself. Except Nappa, he's old.'

'What?' Bulma was horrified. 'Not even your mother?'

'I never knew my mother,' he said simply.

No wonder he was a savage! If he was raised by boys with no mother, and by the sound of it, no father, of course he was feral. She felt sorrier for him than ever.

'You poor thing! Are you an orphan?'

'Bulma!' whispered Puar. 'He's not a _poor thing!_ We're the poor things!'

'Listen to your daemon,' drawled Vegeta. 'I am an orphan, but I am not an object for your pity.'

Bulma humphed, reserving judgement. How would he know? 'Is it not sad that there are no Saiyan females?'

'It is. I'd give all my men for one woman.'

This sounded hopeful. And just a little bit romantic. Bulma was fairly pleased by this sentiment. After all, despite her great brains, beauty and cunning, her male friends, even her boyfriend were often disparaging about her being 'only a girl.' It looked like this Prince Vegeta had his priorities around the right way.

'I guess you'd give any amount of spoons when all you need is a fork,' she said, and then giggled at her unintentional near-pun.

'Even before my planet was destroyed, my race prized females highly. Men fought over women. A man would die for his woman.'

She stitched the skin closed with her neatest embroidery stitch, dosed the join with antiseptic powder and wrapped it tightly with gauze. Then she made a splint out of pencils and surgical tape, and covered the whole thing with a bandage.

'There,' she said. 'That's going to take weeks to heal, I suspect. And you'll have to go easy on it.'

He swung his head around, a look of fierce joy on his face. 'It is done?' He tried to look over his shoulder at it and lost his balance, ending up falling face down with his upper body over the benchtop. He levitated into the air and lashed the mended tail about, crashing it through a shelf of glassware.

'What did I just say?' shouted Bulma, jumping clear. 'It should probably be in a sling.'

'No sling!' he said, grinning gleefully. 'Of course, such an injury would not keep me down!'

'And what did I do?' she complained. 'Nothing, I suppose?'

'You did your part.'

'Huh! No thank you either, I guess!'

He dropped to the floor, staggering on landing from the sedative still in his system, and stalked around the bench to Bulma, keeping his eyes trained on her the whole way. His gaze was intense and his expression triumphant as he rounded on her.

'Oh shit, you've done it now!' said Puar.

Bulma turned and ran down and around the far end of the bench, trying to make it back to the door before he caught her, but he merely leapt clear over the bench and landed in front of her. She crashed right into him and he clung to her as she knocked him off balance. His sly grin was at odds with his actions though. 'Come with me,' he said. His delight was almost charming.

'Why?' she asked, trying to pull out of his grasp. He was so strong though that he didn't even appear to notice her struggle. 'I think I might want to stay here actually.'

'Come back with me to my men. Tell them the story you told tonight! About the magic gems you can find! Tell us how the story ends!'

'Uh oh, he's gone to crazy town,' whispered Puar right in her ear.

'You want a bedtime story?' she asked incredulous.

'No. I want the wish,' he said and finally she realised that he was talking about the Dragonballs. Somehow he had found out about her connection to them and come stalking her. He saw her fright and chuckled.

'I will not harm you if you return with me,' he said.

'Right,' she replied. 'There's nothing like the promise of non-violence to get my enthusiasm up.'

'I _might_ harm you if you don't.'

'Oh, such a winning argument!'

'I had heard you had a taste for adventure, Princess, but I guess I heard wrong! My men will be very disappointed when I tell them what a clever, useful, pretty female didn't want to meet them.'

'You think I'm pretty?'

'No, but that's what I'll tell my men.' He laughed at her insulted face, and turned towards the door, pulling her one-handed behind him. She tried not moving, but he just dragged her bare feet across the tiles. 'Your friend Kakarott will be coming with me anyway,' he said. 'You may as well come willingly.'

'Why should I want to help you?' she said as he dragged her up the stairs.

He didn't reply.

'You threatened to kill me on more than one occasion tonight!' she went on, as they crossed the lawn to the house. 'There's no reason on this green Earth for me to go anywhere with you!'

He pulled her round and pinned her against the wall with one arm, his back to the crescent moon and the city lights, throwing his face into shadow.

'This green Earth is the reason you should,' he finally replied. 'I thought you knew about the space pirate - only his name is not Captain Ice Cream but Lord Frieza. He is hunting us down, and may already know we are here on this planet. When he finds this fat candy land of untapped resource you can kiss your planet and your species goodbye too!'

'_What?_' Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. Had this stranger really brought such a threat on his coat tails? She didn't want what he said to be true.

'No-one is that strong!' she said. 'No-one can destroy a planet!'

'Can't they?' he laughed. 'Maybe in your world of weaklings this is true, but even I can destroy a planet! And Frieza is many times more powerful than I.'

'How can we believe you?' demanded Puar.

He appeared to notice Puar again for the first time in a while, and struggled to focus on her little cat-features. Then he reached out and grabbed her again, bringing the squealing cat to his nose and sniffing her as if trying to judge if she was edible. Then he looked back at Bulma, Puar disregarded in his fist, and grinned again.

'The question is, can you afford to _not_ believe me?'

* * *

_Author's Note: What do ya think?_


	3. Chapter 3 - Fly, Maggots, Fly!

_Author's Note: Long time, no post! Oh, I love posting!_

* * *

They made it back to the nursery a little less discretely than they left. Vegeta was clumsy and spoke too loudly as he followed her through the house, bumping into doorframes and swearing.

'Let's see what kind of third-class cretin you're harbouring,' he said as they entered the nursery.

'Goku!' whispered Bulma urgently to the sleeping boy. Vegeta strode over and whipped the sleeping bag clear off of him. Goku started in his sleep, and mumbled sleepily before Vegeta griped him by the back of his gi and lifted him into the air, arse-up and tail on full display.

'Huh?' said Goku.

'He's a Saiyan all right,' said Vegeta in satisfied tones. 'A weakling and a failure by the looks of it, but beggars can't be choosers. I'll take him even so.'

'Hey!' said Goku, coming awake properly and kicking about. 'Who are you calling a weakling?'

'You, Kakarott,' replied Vegeta, dropping the younger boy back to the floor. Goku landed nimbly on his fingers and toes.

'Hey, now you're calling me a Kakarott!' said Goku testily, getting up. This awoke Krillin, who peered up crankily at Bulma.

'Am I going to get any decent sleep tonight?' he said, and then turned his head towards Vegeta. 'Who the heck is that?' he yelped.

Vegeta, glanced over at Krillin, giving him only a contemptuous sneer in reply.

'He's that guy I was telling you about earlier,' said Bulma, not liking the way Vegeta was looking at Krillin as he scrambled to his feet.

'What guy?'

'The Prince!'

'The _Stalker_ Prince? Bulma, I thought that was only a story you made up!'

'So did I, Krillin!'

'Am I still dreaming? That doesn't make any sense!'

'Bulma, what's going on?' said Goku.

Bulma looked at Vegeta, unsure of what to do or say.

'His name is Vegeta. Vegeta, this is Krillin and Goku.'

Vegeta pointed at Goku, his hand weaving in the air slightly. 'Whatever he thinks his name is, his name is Kakarott.' Then he pointed at Krillin, '_He_ is a witness.'

'No!' cried Bulma and Puar at once, remembering what Vegeta said he would do to witnesses.

'No, we should take him with us!' said Bulma. 'He can help you! He's a martial artist, nearly as strong as Goku!'

'Nearly?' protested Krillin.

'Huh,' said Vegeta, unconvinced. He reached up to the contraption that covered his ear and eye and pressed a button. Bulma could see a faint overlay of illuminated characters scroll in the corner, before with a beep they slowed and flashed. Then he repeated the process and looked pissed off at what he saw.

'You _are_ nearly as strong as Kakarott, I'll give you that,' he said to Krillin, 'but you, Kakarott, are a pathetic specimen of a Saiyan, even for a child your age!'

'I don't like the way you're calling me all these names I don't understand!' said Goku starting to get angry. 'I think you should leave, or I'll fight you!'

'A Saiyan is what you are. Your name is Kakarott. I am your Prince!' he told Goku slowly. Then he turned to Bulma. 'I hardly know whether it is worth taking him - he is weak _and_ stupid.'

'He's my friend. And he never loses a battle!' she told him.

'Very well. Perhaps we could use someone who is _lucky_. Come, we are leaving now before the old ones or the long haired fighter awake.'

'What?' they all cried.

'What are you talking about?' demanded Krillin.

'The girl and Kakarott are coming with me to help me defeat my enemy.'

'What about me?' asked Puar from Vegeta's hand.

Vegeta started and then looked down at the nearly-forgotten cat in his hand. 'You too, daemon.'

Krillin and Goku both stared open mouthed, looking between Bulma and Vegeta.

'Captain Ice Cream is real too?' asked Goku.

'Yes,' said Bulma. 'And if we don't help Vegeta he might destroy the Earth like he destroyed Vegeta's planet.'

'Ha!' muttered Vegeta, 'Captain Ice Cream! I'll have to call him that to his face.'

Goku and Krillin ignored him though, reeling at what Bulma had told them.

'He destroyed a whole planet? Why?'

'I don't know Krillin. But Vegeta says that he may be following him here, and when he gets here he'll see what a prize target the Earth is.'

'What does that mean?' asked Goku.

'The planet will be sold to resource strip miners or developers,' drawled Vegeta. 'The Earthlings either will be eradicated or enslaved.'

'We can't let that happen!' said Goku. Krillin turned a ghostly shade and gulped.

'Why is he coming here?' he asked. Vegeta ignored him. Krillin looked back and forth between Bulma and Goku before lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders. 'I don't trust this guy, but I can't stand by and let the Earth be destroyed! I'm going with you.'

'I don't need another useless mouth to feed,' Vegeta said, raising his palm to Krillin. Bulma didn't know what he was planning to do, but was sure it wasn't good.

'No!' she said, stepping forward, and then, after a moment of steeling her nerves, stepping in front of Krillin. 'I need him,' she said, trying to come up with a reason for Vegeta to keep Krillin alive. 'He's my Dragonball assistant.' She hoped that Vegeta didn't notice the puzzled 'huh?' that Krillin let slip.

Vegeta growled and then relented. 'Fine. If you can keep up, maggot, you can come. If you screw up or slow us down, I'll blast you to the Next Dimension myself. And we're leaving _now_,' said Vegeta, walking to the window, unlocking and opening it with his free hand. He turned and looked back at the rest, expectantly.

The other three stared back at him blankly.

'You want us to jump out the window?' said Krillin. He lifted an eyebrow at Bulma. 'Is this guy drunk?' he whispered. Bulma laughed apologetically, just in case Vegeta had heard.

'It's a long way to the ground,' said Goku, and then his face hardened with determination, 'but okay!'

'No, Goku,' cried Bulma, 'you'll splatter!'

Vegeta hissed in frustration. 'Don't tell me you can't fly?! Imbeciles! Even with your low power levels you should be able to _fly!_'

'Well, that does it,' said Krillin. 'He's either drunk or mad, and we don't need to listen to anything he says.'

'Even this tiny, weak creature can fly,' said Vegeta, brandishing Puar. 'Why can you not?'

'But that's Puar,' said Goku. 'People can't fly!'

Vegeta rose a foot into the air. 'Can't they?'

Krillin looked like he might faint. 'You _were_ here before, weren't you? And you flew out the window, just like Yamcha said!'

'How did you do that?' said Goku. Vegeta ignored Krillin's observation and answered Goku's question.

'Chi, life force, energy – are you familiar with it?'

The two boys nodded.

'Can you manipulate it?'

The two boys took identical stances of concentration, growling with effort as they powered up, holding their hands close together in front of their chests and centring their Chi between their palms until they had glowing balls of energy. Bulma watched their almost magical display and attempted to ape it, growling and frowning and wondering what they hell it was they did that got this light show happening. She had no idea what she was doing, but she wanted to fly.

'Pathetic,' said Vegeta. He looked over at Bulma. 'What the hell are _you_ doing?'

'Um, trying to manipulate my chi?'

'Well, it's not working. You look more like you're experiencing acute constipation.' He reached up and tapped the contraption on his face again, and the characters whirled away until they settled on a single digit. 'What?' said Vegeta, and then he began laughing. 'I thought that the elite of this planet might be stronger than the Earthling average, but I was sadly mistaken. I'll have to carry _you_, princess.'

Bulma blushed with chagrin. Why did the boys get to fly, while she had to be _carried_? It wasn't fair!

'Now, take that energy you have gathered and distribute it under your feet, your hands and any other part of you that is horizontal to the ground. Then use it to lift yourself into the air.'

Krillin and Goku exchanged glances and then teased their concentrated chi back out under their hands. It became faint and then invisible as they lost their control and it slipped away. With much frowning and grunting they ended up standing like starfish, still firmly on the ground.

'Hey,' said Goku, his arms bouncing slightly. 'I think my hands are floating!'

Vegeta only growled.

Bulma felt like the dunce, and was mindful that she was still only wearing her nightshirt and that the great part of her potential usefulness lay in her resources, of which she had none to hand. At the very least she needed the dragonball radar.

'I need to go get some stuff if we're going to go dragonball hunting,' she said. She made for the door.

'Where are you going?' said the jumpy Prince.

'Don't worry!' she told him. 'I want to save the world, and I don't want to wake anyone! I'll only be a couple of minutes and then I'll be back.'

'Then hurry,' he barked.

In her room with the door closed she threw on some shorts, a t-shirt, a hooded jacket and sneakers. Then she grabbed the small backpack of capsules she kept well-stocked for any adventures that might crop up. She checked that the dragon radar was still inside the front pocket, and then turned and ran all the way back down to the med lab. There she gathered up more medical supplies and some more of her father's experimental solutions, including the sedative and capsulated them. Something told her that they would be needed. At the very least, Vegeta's dressings would have to be changed at some point.

She was about to leave when she began to feel bad that she was stealing her father's work with no explanation, not to mention that when her parents woke up, she and her friends would be gone. They never usually worried, but she needed to give them some reason for her disappearance. Quickly, she grabbed a notepad out of a draw and scrawled a note for her parents to find, leaving it in the centre of the steel topped bench. It wasn't ideal, but saving the world was a special case, and if she woke them up to tell them, not only would they probably make a fuss, the doped-up, feral prince might kill them. As she was leaving the lab she spied the emergency capsules her father kept down here in case of some apocalyptic event, and she remembered Vegeta's complaint about having 'another useless mouth to feed'. Well, he wouldn't be able to complain if they brought their own supplies, would he? She grabbed some handfuls of food and drink capsules and stuffed them in a biological sample carry satchel.

Back upstairs in the corridor she collided with Vegeta, who slapped a hand around her wrist and dragged her back into the nursery.

'What took you so long? I was about to hunt you down.'

'You should have made a break for it, Bulma!' said Puar.

'How do you control your daemon?' asked Vegeta. 'I will destroy it if it won't work for me.'

'What's a daemon?' said Bulma.

Vegeta looked pissed off, but asked his own question, rather than answer hers. 'If it's not a daemon, what is it?'

'I'm a cat, and I have a voice and mind of my own!' protested Puar.

'She's my friend. Just do what he says, Puar, I don't want you to get hurt!'

'Oh, Bulma!' she sobbed in despair. 'What makes you think he won't kill us even so!'

Vegeta said nothing, but gave a less than reassuring snort.

The boys had graduated to levitating. Goku rose up unsteadily as she watched, bumping his head on the ceiling, gasping with surprise and then dropping nearly all the way to the ground. Krillin was hovering uncertainly, attempting to lie himself flat on a cushion of chi. Vegeta shook his head.

'The girl is back. We leave now.'

'What, already?' said Goku.

Vegeta grabbed Goku by the head and threw him out the window. Goku's cry of shock disappeared with the boy, and Bulma ran to the window, ready to scream, but Goku bobbed back into view, spread-eagle in the air.

'That wasn't so bad,' he said, and Bulma breathed in relief, turning furious eyes on Vegeta. Vegeta made a move towards her and she stepped away from him.

'I don't think so, buddy!' she said, rummaging through her backpack. 'I'm not being carried by you all the way to who-knows-where.' She found the capsule she was looking for and pressed the release button, throwing it out the window. With a pop, a hoverbike materialised, floating obediently in the air outside.

Vegeta grunted in surprise, but then tried to look nonchalant when she raised a smug eyebrow at him.

'Your tech is somewhat advanced,' he said, and then jumped out the window himself, waiting for her in the air while Goku practised aerial manoeuvrings around him. Bulma climbed onto the window sill and then steeled herself to leap the five feet or so to the saddle of the bike. As she settled herself in and coasted the bike away from the building, only Krillin remained in the window.

'I'm not ready to fly!' squealed Krillin.

'What did I say to you?' said Vegeta, an unforgiving glint in his eye.

'That if I couldn't keep up…you'd blast me?'

'Your choice, squirt!' said Vegeta, holding up his hand towards Krillin.

'No, wait!' cried Bulma, but Krillin leapt to the window sill and out, falling straight down between the house and the bike.

* * *

Yamcha jumped, awakened from a deep sleep in the flowerbed by the sound of Krillin and Bulma's screams. He saw Krillin falling to the ground, and he leapt to his feet in horror, but the next moment as Krillin _swooped_. The boy was flying! He rubbed his eyes. Was he still dreaming? He looked up at the sound of an engine revving and saw Bulma perched on a hoverbike, and Goku was flying too! And another figure – a man or a boy, moving through the air like he was born to it.

For a second he was struck dumb listening to Krillin's nervous laughter and Goku and Bulma's cheers. And then the stranger spoke, his voice deep and harsh in the balmy summer night.

'Now, go! Eastwards, straight over the city. And get a move on, I don't want to still be flying at dawn!'

Bulma gunned the engine on the bike, masking Yamcha's yell as he stumbled out of the flowerbed onto the lawn.

'Bulma! Wait!'

She didn't hear. She and the boys flew on, followed by the man.

'WAIT!' he screamed, but she still didn't hear. The man did though. He slowed and turned, his dark features sweeping the garden. The guy, that presence; it was without a doubt the intruder from earlier, and a prickling, instinctual sense told Yamcha to hide. He ducked back into the flowerbeds, and then ran down the side of the pool house, bent low in the shadows, closer to where the man hung in the air. Without warning a beam of light shot out of the finger of the stranger and hit the flowerbed where Yamcha had just been. It exploded in a shower of soil and petals, and the shockwave knocked Yamcha to the ground and winded him.

Then he heard a sound that would haunt him to the end of his days. A cruel chuckle, delighting in the destruction and his attempted murder. The figure flew on.

'Yamcha!' came Puar's faint cry. 'I'm sorry!'

Yamcha picked himself up and raced across the Capsule Compound, but it was no use – the stranger and his friends were gone.

He turned tail and ran back to the house and battered on the front door, yelling at the top of his lungs.

'Wake up! Open up! Dr Briefs! Mrs Briefs!'

After a minute he still couldn't hear any movement from inside, so he raced around the side of the house. He had no idea which window might be Bulma's parents' room, so he ran back and forwards around the back of the house screaming for them to wake up.

This tactic paid off when a balcony door opened up and Dr Briefs stepped out.

'Yamcha! Why are you making this racket? I never picked you for a troublemaker before tonight, but if I have to call the police, I will!'

'No, Dr Briefs!' he shouted back up at him, aggrieved. 'Bulma and the boys, they're gone!'

'What?'

Mrs Briefs joined her husband on the balcony, wrapping her dressing gown around her.

'Yeah, that stranger came back, and they've gone off with him!'

'This again?'

'Dr Briefs, it's the truth. Someone was there, and he came back and took them!'

'And then why didn't you stop them?'

'Because they were flying, Dr Briefs!' he said in despair, knowing even as he said it how mad he sounded. Mrs Briefs gasped and looked at her husband, clearly thinking that Yamcha's chain had slipped a gear.

'My daughter sprouted wings and flew, did she?' said the doctor.

'No,' said Yamcha, 'Bulma was on a hoverbike. But the stranger and Krillin and Goku were _flying!_ I don't know where they've gone, but I'm scared that they're all in danger. I don't know why they've gone with him, they didn't hear me yelling after them, but the guy, he…he tried to kill me by blowing up some of the garden.'

'Oh my word, Yamcha!' said Mrs Briefs, 'How can this be true?'

'I know I sound mental, but please, check her room!'

They both hurried away, and when Mrs Briefs returned she was crying. 'Yamcha, you're right, they're gone! You'd better come in. Trunks has gone down to open the front door for you!'

Upstairs, back inside the nursery again they had the lights on. The sleeping bags were tossed carelessly on the floor, and more worryingly, little drops of blood were scattered around the carpet. There was a smear of blood on the frame of the window. Yamcha's heart was in his mouth, and Mrs Briefs was on the verge of hysterical tears. Suddenly and bizarrely, Bulma's parents were now looking to him for a clue as to what to do next.

'I'm very sorry I doubted you, boy,' said Dr Briefs. 'Very sorry indeed!'

Yamcha was too scared and angry to acknowledge the apology. He followed the trail of blood spots through the door into Bulma's room. The blood trail crossed the room several times, with a generous scattering on the floor next to the bed and on the crisp white bed coverings.

'No!' cried Mrs Briefs, staggering in shock into her husband.

Yamcha felt a little faint himself, but he said 'We don't know that this is her blood, Mrs Briefs. I only saw her from a distance, but she didn't look seriously injured.'

He looked around the room. The wardrobe was open, as were some of her draws. Her underwear was on display, and there was a handful of socks and stockings scattered next to the bedside lamp. Some were stained with blood.

'Someone was injured,' said Yamcha. 'And they tried to staunch the blood with these socks and stuff.'

He followed one trail to the other door from Bulma's room, out into the corridor. The Briefs followed on his heels as he went from blood spot to blood spot, down through the house, out through the kitchen and the back door, across the neatly clipped lawn to the entrance of the underground lab. Dr Briefs entered the access code.

'Bulma must have come down here,' he said shakily. 'Only she would know how to get in. Maybe they were heading to the med lab.'

The blood trail confirmed his guess. He flicked on the overhead lights on a disturbing scene. Smashed glassware covered the bench and floor on one side of the lab from a shelf that had been swiped bare. The central bench had a decent splattering of blood on it, surrounded by bloodied gauze, suture needles, tweezers and forceps, and a kidney tray holding bloodied bone fragments.

'Oh my god,' said Mrs Briefs, seeing this.

'This couldn't be Bulma's injury dear,' said Dr Briefs, as much to convince himself as her. 'Neither of the boys would attempt complex first aid like this, and she couldn't have possibly managed to do it on herself.'

'Are you sure about that?' said Yamcha.

The doctor kept his mouth shut as he looked around the fridges and lockers of the lab. Whatever he saw made his face go icy.

'No, I'm not sure,' he said. 'Half my research has gone missing. Perhaps we are dealing with a very violent case of industrial espionage and kidnapping.'

'A note!' cried Mrs Briefs.

They all converged upon it. It was Bulma's writing.

_Dad,_

_Goku, Krillin and me have gone to help a prince stop a space pirate from destroying the world. I don't know how long we'll be. Tell mum not to worry too much._

_Sorry, I had to borrow some of your stuff. I'll try and make it up to you when I get back. At least we know that it works well!_

_Love you_

_Bulma._

The silence that followed the reading of this letter was finally broken by Mrs Briefs's sob. Her hands were gripping the bench so tight that her knuckles were showing white.

'Her phantom was real!' she said, and then she crumpled. Yamcha caught her before she hit the ground, passed out from shock.


	4. Chapter 4 - Straight On Till Morning

_Author's Note: Before I get going, thanks for all your reviews so far. And a special request - could guest reviewer Anonymonomanamo please get in touch with me? I want to chat you ya! Either make an account and login to PM me, or you can email me at dragonbabezee at aol dot com. That goes for any other members without accounts too who would like answers to their questions about my fics, but I am pretty keen to catch up with a fellow Kiwi DBZ fan. Who knows, we could be neighbours. Peace, love and jandals (not today though, it's still fecking freezing outside)._

_It's still early days in this fic, but I hope you are all digging it already._

* * *

They had left the city and its outlying suburbs far behind.

As Vegeta flew on towards the lightening horizon he began to be filled with a growing discomfort. His head hurt in a way that made him reluctant to swing his head around, his stomach felt queasy, his tail was beginning to throb painfully, and each movement sent a fiery lance of pain right up his spine. Worst of all was realising that he'd not been in full control of himself these last couple of hours. He felt rather like he'd been out drinking all night, and now he was coming to his senses amidst his hangover.

He draped his tail loosely around his leg to minimise its movement, then braced himself to look over his shoulder at the source of the annoyingly loud buzzing. The girl was trailing him on that machine. He groaned and turned away again. His memories of the night were foggy. The last thing he remembered clearly was accidentally waking the girl and forcing her to help him find his tail. It had been a dumb move, but he'd been desperate. He dimly remembered a serum spray, minor surgery to reattach his tail, and being very happy. A little more clearly he remembered yelling at some brats and then their escape through the window. Kakarott, that was right. A fortuitous find. And the girl was indeed the princess he had heard of. He'd overhead her story, confirming as much.

He had brought Kakarott along with him, but he was not sure now if his decision to bring the girl was sound. It hadn't been his original intention. He'd been hoping that during his surveillance of her he would be able to uncover the secret to finding and using the mystical gems, but to his frustration, so far he'd found nothing of consequence. The girl lived an inane life of indulgence and talked in her sleep. The most useful thing he had discovered was that she was some sort of scientific protégé. Apparently she also possessed the craftiness to drug him, and the fact that he'd been compromised disturbed him. He'd already been contemplating a change of tactic, probably involving a discrete kidnapping and interrogation, but instead he'd allowed himself to be injured, then winged it and ended up in this messy palaver with no clear memory of what he'd done or exposed. He couldn't even properly remember what he had said to her. Well, if she was no use to them and he'd said too much, at least she would be at hand to dispose of, and not be a witness for Frieza to scoop up. In the meantime the girl would have to be watched, as perhaps she was not as harmless as she seemed.

Something squirmed in his hand and he looked across to the creature he still grasped.

'Are you a daemon?' he asked it plainly.

'No. I don't even know what that is,' it said glumly.

'It's a thrall,' he told it. The creature still looked back dumbly. 'It's a being with no free will, whose purpose is to serve its master with whatever skills or knowledge it possess. Some races use them. Some races make good daemons.'

'I'm a cat,' it said, and Vegeta thought he detected a note of derision in its voice.

'I've seen many things called "cats" on various planets. None of them was sentient. Are you sure you're not a creation of that girl or her kind?'

'Yes, I'm sure! I was born in a village of cats, and we can all talk and fly.'

'If you're not a daemon, what use are you?' He squeezed the cat harder to let it know that useless equalled dead. The cat choked and then suddenly disappeared, replaced by a snake. Vegeta was so shocked the he flung it away from himself. The snake fell through the air and he watched it go, wondering what manner of dark science this was, when the snake exploded outwards in a flurry of feathers. It was now a hawk, which wheeled around below him and began beating its wings frantically to get away. Vegeta was breathing hard, not knowing what he was dealing with, but one thing was sure – that creature was making a beeline back the way they had come and it knew everything that had happened this night, which was more than Vegeta did.

He grimaced with pain as he dropped downwards and then turned over in the air, putting on a brutal burst of speed, catching up with the hawk within a handful of seconds. He snatched it in mid flight, and it gave a keening cry of despair before turning back into the cat. The girl slowed and turned the buzzing craft around to see what was happening. Kakarott was still far behind. Who was that other figure with Kakarott? Oh, the assistant. He had almost forgotten.

He turned, groaning again, to take his place in the lead, his grip on the cat firmer than ever. The damn thing transformed again, nearly slipping his grasp again as it grew enormously into an orange beast with black stripes and killer teeth and claws. It turned on Vegeta, curling up in the air to rake into him with its rear legs, roaring as it did so. Vegeta gasped in shock as his body armour saved him from the unexpected mauling, but he didn't let the beast have another go. He gave it a sharp blow across to the side of the head and it went limp, popping back to its usual form with a yelp.

'Well,' said Vegeta, 'that _does_ seem very useful. What other services do you perform for your mistress?'

'Bulma isn't my mistress,' the cat said miserably. 'I was looking out for her because she's Yamcha's girl, and he asked me to.'

'And who is Yamcha?'

'My best friend – the one who you tried to kill earlier!'

'_Tried_ to kill?' said Vegeta, slowing in the air. Shit! He'd meant to destroy the sentry in the bushes. How long would it take to get back there and finish him off?

'No!' said the cat, reading his intention. 'He's not a witness; you don't need to kill him! He barely saw you, and from a distance. He has nothing to tell!'

Vegeta frowned and tried to review his fuzzy memory. He supposed it was right, and he really didn't want to waste time going back. Blast the girl and her serums!

'So what other tricks did you do for your master? Be truthful now – useful or not, I'll kill you without a second thought if I find you've lied.'

'No other tricks! I give him advice and company because he's my friend!'

Vegeta brought the cat to his face and looked into its frightened black eyes. 'It sounds to me like you _are_ a daemon. Well, you're my daemon now. My "friend" now.'

The cat struggled weakly and gave a cry.

'None of that,' commanded Vegeta. 'Obey me, aid me, and you'll come to no harm. Escape, and I'll kill the girl then come back for you and your old master. Do we have a deal?'

The cat began weeping and went limp in his hand again. 'Deal,' it said brokenly.

'Then my first order is; shut up. I detest the sound of self-pity.'

The daemon obeyed. Pleased, Vegeta looked away into the lightening horizon, where the dark shadow of a forest could be seen growing closer. It was probably only another half hour before dawn. He yawned. If Nappa was still in bed when he got back he was going to kick him out of the bedroom and shut him out with the rest of the rabble while he got some sleep.

'My name is Puar,' said the little voice.

Vegeta gave the cat a sneer. 'Poo-arr?' he repeated, rolling the silly name around his tongue. 'I will called you Daemon. You will call me Master or Prince Vegeta.'

The cat's miserable face turned hostile. Vegeta chuckled at its offence and flew on.

* * *

Tarble was bored. Yet again he was stuck on the early morning sentry duty. Nappa swore he was just following the roster, but for some reason Tarble seemed to be rostered to the crappiest shift more often than not. Tarble suspected that Nappa was full of shit.

The pine tree he had spent the last four hours perched in was uncomfortable and he was sticky with sap. When Prince Vegeta had sought him out on Planet Tech-Tech, revealed his Saiyan heritage and told him to come away with them to avenge their people, it had sounded tremendously exciting. Tarble had been overjoyed to join people who looked like him, whom he had a natural place with instead of being the tall, funny-looking freak all the time like he was amongst the Tech-Techies. At eleven years old he had already been stronger than the strongest Tech-Techie. When he'd been a young child he had transformed under every full moon and killed thousands of Tech-Techies until the gentle people figured out what triggered his monstrous transformation. Since then he'd spent every thirteenth day, the full moon of planet Tech-Tech's lunar cycle, in confinement under observation. The other twelve days of the month he'd tried to do every good deed he was allowed, but it didn't matter. He would always be just the strange, dangerous alien to most Tech-Techies.

He'd grown up on the charity of curious friends and strangers. The idea of having true kin was irresistible. But every day since he'd climbed on board the Saiyan's space ship, there hadn't been a single one that he hadn't regretted it.

He sighed. A year on, his place amongst his "people" was as the runt of the pack. The freakishly weak and soft. It was too late to turn back now. He would just have to try and live up to his birthright. The Tech-Techies had called him violent and overly-physical in his approach to everything. They had no concept of violence compared to the older Saiyans.

His post was near the top of a hill. Below him on one side the forest fell away into a deep valley. At the bottom of the valley, tucked away out of sight in a clearing was their ship. He made another revolution around the trunk of the tree, his weight shaking the trunk and branches this high up, and this time he saw something through the infrared binoculars. Some tiny dots. Tarble felt his stomach immediately drop. Two dots coming this way? Sentry duty was bad enough when nothing happened!

Nervously he fingered the radio com unit. The others wouldn't thank him for waking them if it was just some flying dinosaurs like last time. But they might thank him if he killed the flying dinosaurs…Nappa and the others were never likely to turn their noses up at fresh meat.

'Oh no,' he whispered as the specks came closer. He could sense that one of them was Vegeta. That was one thing that he was good at that the other Saiyans were useless at. For all their power and control of Chi they couldn't sense it worth a damn, and instead relied upon their scouters. The Tech-Techies were weak, but even the children were trained to use their sense of Chi.

What or who could possibly be coming back with Vegeta?

If Vegeta was being pursued he should raise the others. But if it was something innocuous he didn't want to get on the bad side of Nappa again. He still had the bruises from last time. He needed a second opinion.

He raised the com unit to his lips. He didn't have a scouter like the older Saiyans because he'd never been in the Planet Trade Organisation Army. They weren't using the communicators on the scouters anyway. Vegeta said that the tech sharks on Frieza's planet recorded everything transmitted over the scouters, and in that way Frieza might track them down. These old-fashioned hand held units they had found on the ship, and that was what he'd been given to use on sentry duty.

'Hey, is someone awake?' Please not Nappa, please not Nappa! he prayed silently. 'Hey! I have a situation out here.'

'What is it Tarble?' came Raditz's irritated reply. His voice sounded sleepy.

'Vegeta is on his way back, but there's someone with him!'

'Who?'

'I can't tell from this far away.'

'Is it friend or foe?'

'I don't know!'

'Well, is Vegeta flying alongside them or is he coming in fast and ahead of them?'

'Um, not sure. Maybe the second. Raditz, maybe you should come up here and make the call.'

'No, Tarble, you gutless little shit! I'm on the crapper. _You_ make the call!'

'Oh no, they're much closer now!'

'Make the call, Tarble.'

'I think he's being chased!'

Raditz must've taken the radio away from his mouth to yell out through the ship. 'WAKE UP, VEGETA'S ON HIS WAY BACK WITH COMPANY AND TARBLE'S HAVING A MELTDOWN!'

Tarble choked at Raditz's chosen phrasing but then his anxiety climbed higher as he could see Vegeta and the stranger even without the binoculars now. Vegeta was in front, and the other person was not flying under their own power, but was on the back of some mechanical beast. Was it weaponised?

'Raditz, please get out here! I think Vegeta's in trouble!'

He could hear shouts and movement on the other end. 'All right,' said Raditz, 'we're coming. But I better not have pinched a loaf for a false alarm, is all I'm saying.'

Tarble decided to fly back towards the ship so that Vegeta and whoever it was wouldn't overtake him, but as he flew low over the trees he realised that he was flying away from battle. If the enemy was powerful enough to have Vegeta on the run, Tarble didn't stand a chance and he knew it, but the pursuer probably hadn't noticed him. The others were always having him on about how meek and cowardly he was. The fact that he'd never (consciously) killed anything more sentient than a cow was a black mark against his name according to Vegeta, Raditz and Nappa. Vegeta had killed his first person when he was four, or some ridiculous age. Tarble couldn't run from his first real opportunity to live up to his birthright by defending his Prince. The others weren't going to get here in time to be any use – Tarble was Vegeta's only back-up.

He took a position hidden behind another trunk and gathered his energy. He would attack the threat under the element of surprise. It might be the last thing he ever did, but if it worked his standing amongst his fellow Saiyans could only rise.

Vegeta flew overhead, and then the person on the noisy craft. They hadn't noticed him, and when the intruder's back was to him and they were bearing down on the ship he fired his Chi blast.

* * *

Vegeta swooped low to land with great relief on the mossy ground in front of the spaceship's closed hatch. It was a common saucer design, of which there were many variations throughout the galaxy. This one stood on six sturdy, insectile legs, was about two and a half storeys high at its apex, and was the size of a medium sized house. Three space pods were docked to the side of it like lifeboats, and the top was a clear, shallow dome that gave the cockpit and command level a view in every direction except down.

He touched down and belted his gloved fist against the metal skin of the craft, making it ring in a rather unsubtle request for the occupants to open up. Just as he did so though a prickling feeling at the back of his neck made him swing his head around just in time to see a bolt of energy slam into the girl on the hovering contraption. She screamed and Vegeta cursed, sure he was seeing his last two weeks effort and his hope of destroying Freiza being wiped out before his eyes. The craft exploded, but the girl was thrown free, plummeting through the air. Vegeta let go of the cat and tried to get under her, but he was too far away. Luckily her fall was broken by a tree branch. She hit it head first and then fell limply the rest of the way to the ground, where Vegeta managed to catch her before she landed.

He looked at the body in his arms dumbly as he heard the hatch open and his men come tumbling out in a babble of confusion. The cat rushed over with a tiny cry of, 'Oh no, Bulma!'

'Prince Vegeta, what is it? Are you all right, sir?' he heard Nappa above all the others.

The girl's hair was darkening with blood and he could feel it running down his forearm. He could feel no pulse of life in her. Such a frail creature couldn't survive such trauma. She didn't move.

'Crap. She's dead,' he said softly.

The daemon sighed and fell to the ground, passed out cold.

'Who did this?' said Vegeta, looked back the other way and upwards to see where the blast had come from. Tarble floated into view. His nervous face sagged into horror when he saw the girl in Vegeta's arms.

'I - I thought you were being attacked!' Tarble said.

Vegeta placed the girl on the ground in front of the others and turned back to Tarble. 'And you thought you'd save me? _You!_ You're a weakling _and_ an idiot, and now she's dead!' He released his temper in one powerful blow to Tarble's nose, and the boy was knocked back against the tree that the girl had hit, knocking it loose from the ground. Vegeta watched him for a second, clutching his face and rolling onto his knees to deal with the blood that was dripping from both nostrils. At least the runt didn't cower like he used to. He took his punishment like a man these days.

'Fucking Tarble,' said Nappa. 'The prince brings us a gift and you go and kill it! Nice one.'

Vegeta turned away, feeling unaccountably depressed. His glove was wet with her blood. He'd killed many, many people, but having one killed in front of him that he wanted to remain alive was a new experience. What would they do now? Would the assistant be able to find and use these _dragonballs_ alone?

'Brolly,' he said to the youngest Saiyan. 'Get rid of the body.'

Brolly nodded in his usual subdued manner and leaned over the girl. He was a month younger than Tarble, but he was about a foot and a half taller. No doubt he was going to be a giant like Raditz when he was done growing. His eyes were invariably gentle and distant looking. Sometimes Vegeta thought it made him look wise beyond his years, and sometimes he just looked like a simple-minded dolt. One could almost forget he was there, but he could be relied upon, except for those few times that Brolly lost that far-away look. Then he could be very unreliable and very difficult to ignore indeed.

As Brolly lifted the girl she made a little noise like a moan.

'Sir,' said Brolly calmly. 'She's not dead.'

Vegeta wheeled around and pressed a hand over her heart. It was still beating, though it was softer than he would expect, more like a bird's than a Saiyan's; no wonder he'd missed it before.

'Hmm,' he said. 'Looks like she is not as delicate as I thought.' He sighed in great relief, although now they would have to deal with an injured girl. He swiftly ran his hands over her limbs and torso looking for more injuries. He couldn't help noticing how soft she was. There wasn't a lot to her, not like a soldier. He felt something rather amiss in the front of her shoulder.

'She has a broken collarbone and that blow to the head. I suppose she'll probably live. Take her inside.'

'Thank goodness,' said Tarble, his voice distorted as he gripped his bleeding nose.

'Shut up,' snarled Vegeta. 'It's only due to your incompetence that she's still alive. If you'd actually hit your target instead of the machine she'd have been blown to bits.'

Tarble's face twisted up bitterly. 'I am sorry, Your Highness,' he said, but Vegeta turned his back on him without acknowledging the apology.

As Brolly moved to take her inside Nappa spoke up. 'Why wait for her to heal? Why don't we just kill this one anyway and go get an undamaged girl?'

'What?' said Vegeta, rounding on the big, bald man. 'Did I not say that no-one was to pick up any waifs and strays for entertainment?'

'Isn't that what you've just done? I thought you'd changed your mind.'

'You thought that just because I've brought a female back that she was for you?' His disgust was so evident that Nappa took a half step back and went on the defensive. Raditz looked disappointed too, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

'Well, for all of us, but if she's just for you, th-that is your prerogative, my Prince,' said Nappa. As Vegeta still glared at him Nappa went on talking. 'In fact I would be pleased for you. I was wondering when the day would come when you'd wake up the pleasures of keeping a female handy.'

'She's not for anyone!' snapped Vegeta. 'This is the Princess the old Namekian talked about! She came with me to help us, if you can believe it, so keep your dick in your pants!'

Had she really said that? That she would help them? No doubt he had made some threats to her along the way, but she had been following him instead of being carried kicking and screaming. She was a willing volunteer, so that willingness was probably worth preserving for as long as possible. Letting Nappa rape her would probably end that willingness pretty fast.

'You are neither of you to touch her,' he told Nappa and Raditz, looking between the both of them. 'There will be dire consequences if she complains you have forced yourselves upon her.' Tarble joined him at his elbow looking horrified at the warning he was hearing. He was the only one of the company who was shorter than Vegeta, but instead of being glad to have someone he didn't have to look up to when he ordered them around, somehow it just made him despise Tarble more.

'I'd never do something like that, Prince Vegeta!' he said.

'I know you wouldn't, you useless little squirt. Now go tell Brolly what I said!'

'Wait, Vegeta,' said Tarble, offering up a bundle of blue and brown fur. 'What's this?'

'Mine,' said Vegeta, and snatched up the unconscious daemon. Man, his head and his tail were hurting something chronic. He'd see the girl settled and then get right to bed.

'Oh, by the way,' he said to Raditz before he forgot, 'I found your brother.'

'Kakarott?' said Raditz, suddenly perking up. 'Where is he?'

'Following. Or at least he was.' Vegeta realised that he hadn't kept track of the boy. Had he lost him? It would be rather hard to find him again if so. He sent a flare of chi high up into the early morning sky and exploded it in a pretty display of crackling white energy. If the kid were within a dozen miles he wouldn't be able to miss that.

'If he turns up, don't expect much.' And then he pushed between Raditz and Nappa to make his way up the ramp into the ship.

* * *

'Look, Goku!' said Krillin, staring ahead at the sudden firework-like display on the horizon. 'You think that's where they are?'

'I think so,' said Goku. 'It feels like it anyway.'

They flew onwards, both of them nearly slipping out of the sky at times as their concentration failed. Goku's eyes kept sliding shut.

'Urh, Krillin, I'm so tired.'

'Me too, Goku. Flying is exhausting. That Vegeta guy didn't exactly take it slow for us beginners!'

'He seems pretty mean,' said Goku.

'Do you think he's really an alien?'

Goku frowned and lashed his tail around in the air. He'd never met another human with a tail. At first he'd thought that it was weird that all the people he met had no tails, but then he'd come to realise that _he_ was the weird one.

'I don't know,' he said, 'but he says I am what he is…a Sayun? So if he is an alien, so am I.'

Krillin regarded his friend nervously. 'You know, that kind of makes sense, given everything I know about you. Who else could eat as much food as you do and not grow to the size of a whale? And the tails you both have are kind of a give-away.'

Goku's frown deepened. He felt very uneasy about all this. He'd never thought much about where he'd come from or who his parents might be. He was Grandpa Gohan's grandson, and that had been good enough for him. He wasn't going to forget that and do what some stranger told him to just because they were both 'Sayuns', whatever that was.

They were flying over forest now, going even slower to look down and around for where Bulma and the prince might be.

'Do we even know what we're looking for?' said Krillin. 'How careless was that guy for getting so far ahead of us? It's like he hardly cares if we show up at all.'

But when they saw the ship nestled in the heart of a valley they knew they had found what they were looking for.

'It's a flying saucer, Goku!' said Krillin looking at his friend with wide eyes. 'Congratulations; you're an alien.'

* * *

_Author's Note: I'm continuing to write this story, but I will take a goodly long break from posting while I get a handle on the plot. If you like what you've read so far, add it to your following list, and hopefully in a few months the updates will begin to flow :) Of course, if you want to leave me a review or a PM with some encouragement, that would be nice too. _


	5. Chapter 5 - Welcome Aboard!

Vegeta went straight to the bedroom and stopped dead in the doorway. Brolly was standing in front of the bed with the girl still in his arms.

'I was going to put her on the bed,' he said in response to Vegeta's scowl, 'but then I thought she would get blood on the pillows.'

Vegeta pursed his lips in annoyance. He wanted to sleep desperately and the only working bedroom would now be acting as some kind of infirmary. He didn't suppose they could put her in the main living area – she would be underfoot. Where else was there? The bathroom floor? He considered it, but then discarded the thought, as leaving someone with a broken collarbone to rest on the bathroom tiles didn't seem an acceptable thing to do to someone who was "helping" them.

He tossed the daemon on the bed and then went back out into the narrow corridor and rifled the linen cupboard for anything clean. Returning with a tight woven blanket and another sheet he put these on one side of the bed, still half folded to soak up the blood. 'Put her on there.'

Vegeta pulled the little backpack and satchel off her. She groaned again as Brolly laid her down, her eyelids fluttering open and then closed again. The daemon was coming round too, looking about with confusion and then crawling to Bulma across the pillow. 'Bulma!' cried the little thing, 'You're not dead!'

'Ow!' she whimpered. 'Where am I?'

'Aboard my ship,' Vegeta said.

She opened her unfocused eyes. 'Are we on a cruise?'

'No. You have a head injury.'

Grimacing, she raised her hand to touch the side of her head and immediately froze, gasping in pain.

'You have a broken collarbone too.'

She started crying.

Vegeta gritted his teeth. 'Stop that.'

'It hurts!'

The daemon growled at Vegeta in an amusingly feeble display of anger. 'Don't move, Bulma,' it said, glaring at Vegeta. 'We'll take care of you. Won't we?'

Vegeta cursed again that the regeneration tank they had stolen didn't work. If it did he could have just thrown her in and not had to listen to the grating sound of the girl's pitiful crying. 'Brolly, go get Nappa. He's got the most experience with field injuries.'

As soon as Brolly left the room he asked her 'Did you bring any of that serum? What you gave me earlier?'

She frowned at him, taking ages to remember. 'The painkiller? Yes. In my backpack. In one of the capsules on the top.'

He dove into it but saw nothing but small pill-shaped metal canisters. Had he…had he really seen her produce a craft from a tiny thing like this?

'This?' he quizzed. 'This is a capsule?'

'Yes,' said the daemon. 'That's an A class capsule. Press the button on top and throw it on the floor.'

He did so, and with a popping explosion a pile of medical-looking supplies appeared next to him. It was an almost magical display of technology. Sifting through the supplies he found a few similar looking bottles. He showed the girl and the daemon one after another until the furry thing said 'That one.' The girl took it from his hand, giving herself a single squirt under her tongue and then closing her eyes with relief.

'One squirt?' said Vegeta. 'You gave me three!'

She only groaned, already halfway back to unconsciousness.

'You lying little bitch! You _were_ trying to drug me!'

She opened an eye a crack, looking confused before it rolled back in her head again.

'Leave her alone, she's concussed!' said the daemon.

Vegeta's anger had no suitable outlet though when the person who caused it was passed out. When Nappa walked in, Vegeta snapped at him.

'What took you so long?'

'Sorry, Your Highness, Kakarott and some bald headed little Earthling tyke just turned up. We weren't expecting the Earthling – should we kill him?'

Vegeta had almost forgotten. 'No. He's her assistant or some bullshit story. Leave him for now.'

'Sure, boss. I'll go tell Raditz and be back.'

* * *

The boys didn't enjoy their reception very much.

Approaching the gangway to the ship they'd immediately been greeted by a very tall, very strong looking man who was lounging at the top of the ramp. He had black eyes and spiky black hair that grew from a deep widow's peak like Vegeta's, down his back to spill over the floor behind him.

'Kakarott,' he said, grinning in anticipation. He was young, maybe only early or mid twenties, though this still seemed old to Goku and Krillin, and there was something about his hawkish smile that gave Krillin the heebie-jeebies.

'Hey, you're calling me Kakarott too,' complained Goku, 'but my name is Goku.'

'No, your name's Kakarott. Can't you even remember your own name? Man, what happened to you?' In his hand he was holding a device like the prince wore, and he placed it on his ear and pressed the little button on the side. When it beeped he made a sound of scorn. 'Vegeta wasn't kidding when he told me not to get my hopes up about you! I can't believe someone as ordinary as you would be my brother.'

'Brother?' cried the boys at once.

The noise seemed to attract other occupants of the craft. Another boy came to the lip of the entrance ramp and stared down at them. He looked slightly younger than themselves, judging by his lack of size, and he stood with his arms crossed, radiating attitude until he was suddenly pushed aside by a burly giant of a man. The new comer was bald, but had a dark goatee and heavy eyebrows. He bent to see below the edge of the saucer to look at them.

'So that's Bardock's other kid, huh?' he said. 'Raditz, what's his power level?'

'Seventy, can you believe it!'

The big man laughed, an ugly sound. 'Hey, Tarble,' he said, turning to the boy. 'Looks like you're not the most puny of us anymore!'

The one called Tarble looked dismayed at the giant's words, but then he hardened his gaze and glared at Goku.

Goku was insulted. 'Puny! Who are you calling puny? I've beat bullies bigger than you before.'

The two men laughed. 'Well, you seem keen enough to have me beat the crap out of you, but we'll get to that later,' said the bald man. Then he turned to the other who finally got to his feet. 'He's got some Saiyan spirit at least.'

The long-haired one was not as tall as the bald one, and though he was well muscled and broad-chested, he was not nearly as built as the other, but when he bent to walk down the ramp to approach the boys, he still towered over them. Krillin had to look up to even see the guy's crotch – looking him in the face gave him a crick in the neck.

'My name is Raditz,' he said, crossing his arms over his chest in the stance that appeared to be a favourite amongst these aliens. 'Third in command. That's Nappa, Prince Vegeta's second, and the other one is Tarble,' he said. 'Brolly is around somewhere.'

'Well, nice to meet you, I think,' said Goku doubtfully. 'But my name's Goku, not Kakarott.'

'My name is Krillin.' Suddenly three pairs of dark alien eyes regarded him predatorily and Krillin had the horrible feeling that it didn't matter what his name was.

'Yes, and what are _you_ doing here? Are you some kind of tag along?' said Raditz.

'He's no Saiyan, that's for sure,' said Nappa. 'I think we might have a little problem here.'

'I-I'm no problem,' said Krillin.

Another boy turned up at the top of the ramp, taller than Tarble, and older looking. 'Nappa, Vegeta wants you.'

Nappa grunted and headed back up the ramp inside the ship while the boy called Brolly came down the ramp to see the strangers. Unlike the others, his gaze was not icy sharp. His eyes were dull and his features placid. 'Who are they?'

'My brother Kakarott, and some dead meat,' said Raditz.

'We're going to kill him?'

'What, no!' said Krillin. Goku came to alert, growling and puffing his tail up at these words. Krillin took a few hasty steps away from Raditz, but before either of them could react further, Raditz lashed his big arm out faster than a snake, grabbed Krillin roughly by the front of his pyjamas and hauled him up in the air so that they were face to face.

'We want no witnesses to our little visit to Earth. Can't be too careful where Frieza is concerned,' he said, raising his other hand and beginning to charge it with crackling chi. 'Nothing personal.'

Krillin shrieked and kicked back at Raditz while raising his arms and wriggling out of his pyjama top. As he fell to the ground Goku launched himself at Raditz with a cry, head butting him in the stomach. Raditz staggered back a step and then laughed as both boys came at him at once, fighting mad, and he held them off with ease.

'Look at this one,' he said as he knocked Krillin head over heels. 'A little Earthling warrior!'

'Raditz!'

Raditz hurriedly knocked Goku to the ground and turned to Nappa, who had reappeared in the entranceway.

'What?'

'Vegeta says that Earthling kid is not to be killed. Look after them while I go take care of the girl.'

'Bulma!' said Krillin, clutching his head as Nappa disappeared back inside. 'Where is she?'

Goku was still eyeing Raditz angrily.

'Is that her name?' said Raditz.

The one called Tarble came down the ramp and spoke. 'She was accidentally injured when she turned up. I'm sorry. Vegeta said she was going to be okay though.'

Raditz's dropped his smile. 'No thanks to you, Tarble.'

Krillin grabbed his pyjama shirt and got to his feet, glaring at Raditz.

'No hard feelings,' said the man, spreading his hands in a gesture of good will made disingenuous by his shameless grin. 'Like I said, it was nothing personal, just orders.' He clamped eyed on Goku again. 'Don't look so offended, little brother.'

'You're no brother of mine!' said Goku. 'Now take us to Bulma!'

* * *

The girl roared through clenched teeth as Nappa manoeuvred her broken collarbone to bind her shoulder. She took another squirt of the painkiller to her mouth between sobs and within a few moments was sagging back into unconsciousness.

'Bulma!' mewled the cat.

'Hurry up, Nappa,' Vegeta said, holding the girl upright by her good shoulder while Nappa wound the bandage over and around her shoulder and back. 'Finish it while she's still out.'

The two new boys stood at the back of the room, distressed at what they were seeing. Brolly and Tarble were poking their curious heads in the door also.

'How did she get hurt?' asked Kakarott.

'A misunderstanding on the part of our sentry,' Vegeta said, not looking up from her pale face. He was more worried about the head wound than the shoulder. It had stopped bleeding pretty much now, and was going sticky, but she wouldn't be much use to them if her wits were addled.

'Tarble, go make yourself useful,' he said. 'Fetch a bowl of warm water and a clean cloth of some sort.'

Nappa nodded. 'Good thinking, Your Highness, I was about to ask the same.' The big man finished his binding by folding her arm over her chest and immobilising it with more strapping. Every tiny shift of the mattress they sat on made the pain in Vegeta's tail flare. He could feel cold sweat breaking out on his brow. The girl's head fell forward, chin on her chest, and when Vegeta moved a hand to lift her chin and keep her airway open he saw his hand was shaking.

'And what happened to you, Vegeta?' Nappa asked him quietly. 'That bandage round your tail's not just for show is it?'

Vegeta was loathe to admit what had happened, but he supposed the truth was bound to come out at some point. 'Some human fighter I was not expecting was there tonight. He got lucky, and managed to chop half my tail off in the window.'

Nappa was aghast. 'How is it that it's reattached then? It would take major, complicated surgery for that!'

'This girl…' Vegeta suddenly remembered that besides her usefulness to him he also owed her for his tail. It also hadn't escaped him the symmetry of their experiences – he being injured by the human sentry, and she by the Saiyan one. 'This girl _Bulma_ performed the surgery and saved my tail.'

Nappa raised his eyebrows. 'But she's just a kid.'

Vegeta gave him a long cool look. 'Am _I_ just a kid Nappa?'

'Of course not! But that's different. You've never been "just a kid".'

'Maybe, if this was an ordinary girl she would be "just a kid," as you say. But this one is extremely clever. She's…' What? Special? Different? 'Important. Cleverer and more important, for the time being, than you are, as a matter of fact, and I'd advise you not to forget it.'

Nappa's expression hardened as he lowered his eyes to his task, clenching his jaw at the insult. Nappa was loyal, but the man frequently forgot himself in his enthusiasm, tending to act without thought, and Vegeta didn't want the girl murdered or damaged when his back was turned. When Tarble squeezed himself into the room Nappa ignored him, so Tarble offered the bowl and the cloth to Vegeta.

'Finished,' said Nappa, standing up.

'What about treating this head wound?' asked Vegeta.

'Well, a head injury is a head injury,' said Nappa flippantly. 'All you can do, with the equipment we have, is to clean it up and hope it's not too bad.' He pushed his way out the door, saying 'If you need me I'll be out…' The end of his sentence was an incoherent mumble. Vegeta felt anger rising at his second's defiance of him. He had half a mind of order him back and finish the job, but then decided he was not in the mood. He'd do it himself and teach Nappa some better manners later. He pulled the girl down the bed until she was lying on her uninjured side, with him kneeling behind her. Now that Nappa was gone the boys crept up to the bed and crouched next to Tarble near her head, watching with disgustingly transparent concern. Including Tarble! Even Brolly showed more curiosity than usual. Gods, he was only a handful of years older than these four and yet the gormless expressions of emotion on their faces him feel like it was a thousand years.

The daemon selected for him a bottle of disinfectant fluid, and he added a splash to the water before dipping the cloth and beginning to wipe up the blood in her hair and on her face and neck. Brolly climbed up next to him on the bed, inadvertently knocking his tail. Vegeta jumped and sloshed some of the water in his lap.

'Get off the bed, Brolly!' he roared. Meekly the boy complied.

His gloves were soaked and bloody and were making it a little hard to be delicate. He took them off and handed them to Tarble, then felt around the gash on her head with the fingers of one hand while he held her jaw with his other to keep her still. The cut was rather small after all the blood was cleared away, and a bruise was swelling up it, but he couldn't feel any tell tale dipping of the skull bones. As far as he could tell her skull wasn't cracked.

'Will she be all right?' asked Kakarott.

'I make no promises, but it looks like it.'

'I don't like your older friends,' said the bald one. 'First they almost kill Bulma, and then they were going to kill me!'

'It was an accident,' said Vegeta, eyes still on the wound. The daemon glared at Tarble, which made Vegeta smile. Maybe he could train the daemon to convey reprimands to his underlings when he was otherwise occupied? The thought amused him.

'It wasn't an accident when the hairy guy tried to kill me,' said the kid. What was his name? Vegeta couldn't remember.

'Raditz was just following orders,' Tarble explained to him. 'He won't kill you if Vegeta says not to.'

'Yeah? Well in that case I _still_ don't like him. It seemed rather like he was going to enjoy killing me. If we're going to be helping each other, maybe an apology is in order?'

'Keep talking, Baldie, and I'll let Raditz have another crack at you,' Vegeta threatened softly. 'Daemon, is there anything in that pile of medical equipment for closing wounds?' he asked the "cat".

It dropped to the floor from the bed and began looking through the gauze, bandages, instruments and bottles. 'There's this glue stuff that she used on you,' it said, returning with another pump bottle with a little nozzle.

He held the edges together and sprayed a strip down the wound then waited for it to dry.

'So, this is the Princess?' asked Tarble. 'The one the Namek and the blue dwarf told you about?'

'Yes.'

'Bulma's not a princess,' said Kakarott, sounding surprised. 'Is she, Krillin?'

'No,' replied the Earthling kid. And then he added under his breath, 'but she acts like one sometimes.'

Vegeta snorted with amusement at Baldie's aside. 'She lives in a palace in the largest city on the planet. For all intents and purposes, she is a princess.' For some reason he resented this. Here he was, a true prince with nothing but his pride, this ship and a handful of soldiers.

The glue dried in seconds. He took the cloth, squeezed it out and wiped the last of the blood from around her ear. The skin of her neck and cheek against his bare hand was amazingly smooth. He didn't think that skin could feel like that. Not that he touched much skin except his own without his gloves on.

She was stirring in his hands now.

'Mmm,' she said, smiling slightly as he rubbed the cloth across her cheek. This painkiller really did a number on a person. He had no doubt now that she'd been trying to incapacitate him earlier. He dropped the cloth back in the bowl and passed it back to Tarble who was transfixed, staring at the girl.

'She's pretty,' said Tarble quietly, sounding overawed. No-one argued with him.

'Now, everyone, get lost,' Vegeta told them, moving himself painfully across the other side of the bed, letting the girl's weight roll off his knees. She sighed and settled herself on her back. 'I'm tired' he told them, 'so I don't want to be woken up unless Frieza himself is landing outside.'

'What should we do with the new guys?' asked Tarble.

'You and Brolly show them the ropes. Other than that, I don't care.' He lay on his side with difficulty as he boys filed out, but then he saw that the bald one, Krillin, was hesitating in the doorway, frowning at him.

'How can we trust you alone with her?' he asked.

'If I'd wanted to hurt her, why would I have gone through all that bother to treat her?' he said, exasperated.

'That's not what I meant.'

'I'll be here,' said the daemon. 'I'll look out for her.'

'That's right, the daemon stays here,' said Vegeta.

Krillin nodded, somewhat placated. Vegeta didn't understand his concern.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Vegeta reached for the bottle of serum. He was too proud to show how much pain he was in beforethe others, but sore enough to take relief if it was at hand. 'Tell no-one,' he said to the cat, but as he lifted it to his face the cat let out a cry and grabbed his hand. 'What?' he shouted.

'No that one!' it shouted back. It was then he realised he was holding the bottle of glue. He threw it down and found the other bottle.

'I can't read that fucking Earthling writing,' he grumbled. 'Looks like you've already proved your usefulness today, Daemon.' He took two squirts this time, feeling the numbness immediately kicking in.

The cat scowled at him. 'I don't know why! I should have just let you glue your mouth shut!'

Vegeta laughed. 'Because you're a good little daemon.'

'I have a name!'

'Poo-arr!' He snorted with laughter again, his eyes drifting shut. 'Poo-arr the talking, flying, shape-sifting…shape-sitting…shape-shitting…cat…'

* * *

_Author's Note: So, I won't be updating for a while, although I will still be writing the story. I've got two more chapters after this one, but I want to hold off posting more until I have at least ten chapters, so that I have leeway to go back and revise as I work through the story. Sorry, but I think it's necessary for quality control. This chapter was only short, and not likely to require any revising, so I thought it safe to post._

_Do not give up hope, I will update again eventually! Press follow story below if you haven't already, to receive notifications when I do begin posting once more._


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